My Brilliant Friend 1

OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES' #1 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY THE NEW YORK TIMES' #8 READERS' LIST BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change. "Nothing quite like it has ever been published."-Guardian "Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and the world."-The Sunday Times "This is high stakes, subversive literature."-The Telegraph

Review: #1: BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY "My Brilliant Friend is entrenched as one of the premier examples of so-called autofiction, a category that has dominated the literature of the 21st century. Reading this uncompromising, unforgettable novel is like riding a bike on gravel: It's gritty and slippery and nerve-racking, all at the same time." * The New York Times *
"Nothing quite like it has ever been published before . . . Brilliant novels, exquisitely translated." -- Meghan O'Rourke * The Guardian *
"Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and in the world." * The Sunday Times *
"Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship." * The TLS *
"To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory." * The Times *
"Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep." -- Joanna Biggs * LRB *
"A modern classic." * The Times *
"Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping." * The Daily Mail *
"Elena Ferrante is an expert chronicler of adolescence and its many indignities, as well as its erratic, overwhelming passions." * The Observer *
"Ferrante is a hypnotist." * The Spectator *
"The beauty of these novels lies in the way they shun simplification, and also in how they articulate the intangible aches of the human experience." (14 books that will change your life) * Dazed *