translated by Ann Goldstein
“Writing,” Elena Ferrante tells us in her engaging, slyly disruptive new collection of essays, expertly translated by Ann Goldstein, “is entering an immense cemetery where every tomb is waiting to be profaned.” The tombs, Ferrante suggests, are filled with our literary patriarchs, the great men who have dominated literature since writing began. The profaners are the marginalized, and Ferrante calls upon us as readers and writers to join her in aiming our spray cans at their graves.
The first three essays were commissioned for the University of Bologna’s Umberto Eco lecture series, and I’m sure it was not lost on Ferrante that she was only the second woman in a long line of men to receive this illustrious invitation. All the more reason it is such a pleasure to read in these pages an intimate account of Ferrante’s development as a woman who writes.
