The Lost Daughter was published by Elena Ferrante in 2006 with the first English translation reaching bookstores two years later. That original publication date was a full decade before Ferrante would be named one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2016 by Time Magazine. If one goes to the page where Ferrante is listed alongside other “artists” who shared the distinction that year—ranging from Melissa McCarthy to Bjarke Ingels—one will discover that her name, alone, is not accompanied by headshot. In its place is a photograph one of her novels, The Story of the Lost Child balanced vertically upright atop three other novels stacked horizontally one upon another.
It was in March of that very same year that author Marco Santagata published a paper which staked the claim that the author of The Lost Daughter and all other books bearing the name Elena Ferrante was actually very likely Marcella Marmo, a college professor. Seven months later, an investigative reporter spurred by Santagat’s inquiry, published own substantially different conclusion, fingering Anita Raja, a renowned and highly respected translator of literary works, as the real Elena Ferrante. These 2016 events are not, of course, unrelated and served to make Ferrante much more famous than she had been upon the release of The Lost Daughter several years earlier. Flash-forward to 2021 and both the novel and its author reached yet another peak on the surprisingly complicated hierarchy of literary fame.
Marmo and Raja both naturally publicly denied being the mysterious author. In the fall of 2021, a film adaptation of The Lost Daughter began making the rounds of film festivals daring to come out of the slumber imposed by the Covid-19 epidemic. This would not be particularly unusual except for the fact that actress Maggie Gyllenhaal asserted in interviews that she wrote to Elena Ferrante asking to make a film and that the author wrote back in agreement upon one single condition: that Gyllenhaal would direct the film herself even though she had never directed a feature film before.
The upshot of all this background information is that perhaps the story of who the author of The Lost Daughter is might actually be a far more fascinating tale than any of the stories she actually writes about in her books. One might have a hard time convincing lovers of the novel, however, as critics and readers alike rate the strangely compelling story of one mother’s bizarre obsession with the relationship between another mother and her daughter quite highly. Both the novel and the film adaptation—despite some significant changes—enjoy solid reviews across the board. One final note of interest: some editions of the novels have been translated as "The Dark Daughter" rather than The Lost Daughter.
