Early novels and Frantumaglia
The first appearance of her work in English was the publication of a short story, "Delia's Elevator", translated by Adria Frizzi in the anthology After the War (2004).[5] It narrates the movements of the title character on the day of her mother's burial, particularly her return to her safe retreat in the old elevator in the apartment building where she grew up.
The story was later expanded into Ferrante's first novel, Troubling Love (in the original version, L'amore molesto), originally published in 1992. The novel follows protagonist Delia when she returns home following the mysterious death of her mother, a poor seamstress, who had been found drowned on an Italian beach, wearing nothing but a luxury bra. The novel was a critical success, and won the prestigious Premio Procida-Isola di Arturo Elsa Morante.[6]
In 2002, Ferrante published her second novel, The Days of Abandonment (in the original version, I giorni dell'abbandono). The novel tells the story of protagonist Olga, whose life unravels when her husband of 15 years abruptly tells her he is leaving her for a younger woman. Olga becomes haunted by the visions of abandoned women she saw as a child. The novel was also a huge success with Italian and international critics.[7] Critic Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times has said: "Both the novel's emotional and carnal candor are potent. Once Olga begins seeing herself as, in Simone de Beauvoir's words, a woman destroyed, she begins a downward spiral that includes hallucination, terror of poison and grim sexual self-abasement with her aging neighbor."[8]
In 2003, Ferrante published her first non-fiction book, La Frantumaglia, which was translated into English as Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey in 2016. The book is a collection of essays and interviews, and it was republished several times to include content on her following novels.
In 2006, Ferrante published her third novel, The Lost Daughter (in the original version, La figlia oscura). The novel follows Leda, a woman who is spending her vacations on an Italian beach, and becomes obsessed with a nearby Italian family, especially with a woman and her young daughter. That makes her think of her own time as a young mother, and the existential despair that led her to leave her family for two years. The book was later adapted as a film for Netflix in the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal.
In 2007, she also published her first children's novel, La spiaggia di notte (translated into English by Ann Goldstein as The Beach at Night in 2016). The book tells the story of a doll who is forgotten on the beach at night.
The Neapolitan Novels
The Neapolitan Novels is a set of four novels published between 2011 and 2015. They tell the life story of two perceptive and intelligent girls, Lila and Lenu, born in Naples in 1944, who try to create lives for themselves within a violent and stultifying culture. The series consists of My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014), and The Story of the Lost Child (2015), which was nominated for the Strega Prize, the most prestigious Italian literary award,[9] as well as the International Booker Prize.
The fourth book of Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet, The Story of the Lost Child, appeared on The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2015.[10] In 2019, The Guardian ranked My Brilliant Friend the 11th best book since 2000.[11] The overall series was also listed in Vulture as one of the 12 "New Classics" since 2000.[12]
Elissa Schappel, writing for Vanity Fair, reviewed the last book of the Quartet as "This is Ferrante at the height of her brilliance."[13] Roger Cohen wrote for the New York Review of Books: "The interacting qualities of the two women are central to the quartet, which is at once introspective and sweeping, personal and political, covering the more than six decades of the two women's lives and the way those lives intersect with Italy's upheavals, from the revolutionary violence of the leftist Red Brigades to radical feminism."[14]
In The Guardian, it was noted the growing popularity of Ferrante, especially among writers: "Partly because her work describes domestic experiences – such as vivid sexual jealousy and other forms of shame – that are underexplored in fiction, Ferrante's reputation is soaring, especially among women (Zadie Smith, Mona Simpson and Jhumpa Lahiri are fans)".[15]
Darrin Franich has called the novels the series of the decade, saying: "The Neapolitan Novels are the series of the decade because they are so clearly of this decade: conflicted, revisionist, desperate, hopeful, revolutionary, euphorically feminine even in the face of assaultive male corrosion."[16]
Judith Shulevitz in The Atlantic, praised particularly how the books circle back to its start, to Lila and Lenu's childhood games, in the final installment.[17] Maureen Corregan has also praised the ending of the novels, calling it "Perfect Devastation".[18]
Later work
Her first novel after finishing the quartet, The Lying Life of Adults, was translated into English by Ann Goldstein and played with the stereotypical teenage-girl-coming-of-age structure.[19]
In 2019, Ferrante also published a book that collected her columns in the English newspaper The Guardian, entitled Incidental Inventions. The book was also published in Italian as L'invenzione occasionale.
In 2022, she published In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing (in the original version I margini e il dettato), based on a series of lectures she wrote for the 2021 Umberto Eco lecture series, sponsored by the University of Bologna. The text was read by the Italian actress Manuela Mandracchia in the Arena del Sole, in Bologna, from 17 to 19 November, and streamed live.[20]
