Ann Goldstein

Soon to be an HBO series, book one in the New York Times bestselling Neapolitan quartet about two friends growing up in post-war Italy is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted family epic by Italy's most beloved and acclaimed writer, Elena Ferrante, "one of the great novelists of our time." (Roxana Robinson, The New York Times)

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Ferrante's four-volume...

Since the publication of My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan novels, Elena Ferrante's fame as one of our most compelling, insightful, and stylish contemporary authors has grown enormously. She has gained admirers among authors--Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Claire Messud, to name a few--and critics--James Wood, John Freeman, Eugenia Williamson, for example. But her most resounding success has undoubtedly been with readers, who have...

The second book, following last year's My Brilliant Friend, featuring the two friends Lila and Elena. The two protagonists are now in their twenties. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila. Meanwhile, Elena continues her journey of self-discovery. The two young women share a complex and evolving bond that brings them close at times, and drives them apart at others. Each vacillates between hurtful disregard and profound love for the other. With this...

"A deeply observed, excruciatingly blunt novel."-The New Yorker

"The raging, tormented voice of the author is something rare."-The New York Times

Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her

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"This book invites readers into Elena Ferrantes workshop. It offers a glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk, those drawers from which emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of My Brilliant Friend, known in English as the Neapolitan Quartet. Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, it is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. In these pages...

"Told with an immediacy and a rare expressive intensity that has earned it countless adoring readers and one of Italy's most prestigious literary prizes, A Girl Returned marks the English-language debut of an extraordinary literary talent. Set against the stark, beautiful landscape of Abruzzo in central Italy, this is a compelling story about mothers and daughters, about responsibility, siblings, and caregiving. Without warning or explanation, an...

"A doll is left on the beach by a little girl who is preoccupied with her new kitten. The doll has to survive all sorts of tests and misadventures during the night but when a new day dawns, she sees things much more clearly." --

"On a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea there lives a boy as innocent as a seabird. Arturo's mother is dead; his father away. Black-clad women care for him, give him the freedom to come and go as he likes. Then the father returns with a new wife, Nunziata, a girl barely older than Arturo. At first hatred and contempt are all the boy feels for his stepmother. In time, Arturo and Nunziata re-create the tragedy and passion that are as old as the history...

"On March 28, 1944, six-year-old Tati, her four-year-old sister Andra, and other members of the family were deported to Auschwitz. Their mother Mira was determined to keep track of her girls. After being tattooed with their inmate numbers, she made them memorize her number and told them to "always remember your name." In keeping this promise to their mother, the sisters were able to be reunited with their parents when WWII ended. An unforgettable...

A novel of family life in post-war Sardinia.