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Shop nowIncidental Inventions
Narrator
Hillary Huber
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Translator
Ann Goldstein
Length
3 hours 5 minutes
Language
English
Elena Ferrante is the bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).
“This is my last column, after a year that has scared and inspired me … I have written as an author of novels, taking on matters that are important to me and that—if I have the will and the time—I’d like to develop within real narrative mechanisms.”
With these words, Elena Ferrante bid farewell to her year-long collaboration with the Guardian newspaper. For a full year, she wrote weekly articles, the subjects of which had been suggested by Guardian editors, making the writing process a sort of prolonged interlocution. The subjects ranged from first love to climate change, from enmity among women to the experience of seeing her novels adapted for film and TV.
Translated by Ann Goldstein, the acclaimed translator of Ferrante’s novels, this volume is a must for all curious readers.
Elena Ferrante, author of The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and My Brilliant Friend, among others, is one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed contemporary writers. She was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2016 by Time.
Hillary Huber is a multiple Audie Award finalist, an Earphones Award winner, and an AudioFile Best Voice. She has recorded over three hundred titles spanning many genres and holds a bachelor's degree in English literature. A voracious reader and listener, she was raised in Connecticut and Hawaii but now splits her time between California and New York.
Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante’s books, including The New York Times bestsellers The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the Booker International Prize. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.
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Reviews
“Both timely and deeply personal…this varied assembly of considerations is a portrait of an acclaimed storyteller’s bold and singular voice.”
“Fifty-one columns, short in length but long on wisdom, on topics ranging from pregnancy and daughters to lies and confessions. As with her fiction, Ferrante’s voice here is clear, eloquent, and powerful.”
“In prose that provokes and transforms, evoking wonder and tension in the most gratifying sense, these fragments of Ferrante ultimately cohere into a full, absorbing portrait of an enduring author.”
“Narrator Hillary Huber takes on the persona of bestselling author Elena Ferrante for this collection…Huber keeps expression to a minimum, letting the words and ideas speak for themselves.”
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