Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, was an Italian noblewoman and poet. As an educated, married noblewoman whose husband was in captivity, Colonna was able to develop relationships within the intellectual circles of Ischia and Naples. Her early poetry began to attract attention in the late 1510s and she ultimately became one of the most popular poets of 16th-century Italy. Upon the early death of her husband, she took refuge at a convent in Rome. She remained a laywoman but experienced a strong spiritual renewal and remained devoutly religious for the rest of her life. Colonna is also known to have been a muse to Michelangelo Buonarroti, himself a poet.
Domenico Starnone is an Italian writer, screenwriter, and journalist. He is a prolific book author, having penned at least 22 works since 1987, at least four of which have been translated from Italian into English, including Prima esecuzione and Confidenza. His novel Via Gemito won the Premio Strega in 2001, and movies by Gabriele Salvatores, Riccardo Milani, and Daniele Luchetti have been based on Starnone books.
Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into many languages. Her four-book series of Neapolitan Novels are her most widely known works. Time magazine called Ferrante one of the 100 most influential people in 2016.
Europa Editions is an independent trade publisher based in New York. The company was founded in 2005 by the owners of the Italian press Edizioni E/O and specializes in literary fiction, mysteries, and narrative non-fiction.
La vita agra, known in English-speaking countries as It's a Hard Life, is a novel by Luciano Bianciardi published in 1962 by Rizzoli. It became a best-seller in Italy and it is considered one of the most important novels in contemporary Italian literature.
The Neapolitan Novels, also known as the Neapolitan Quartet, are a four-part series of fiction by the pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, published originally by Edizioni e/o, translated into English by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions. The English-language titles of the novels are 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). In the original Italian edition, the whole series bears the title of the first novel L'amica geniale. The series has been characterized as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. In an interview in Harper's Magazine, Elena Ferrante has stated that she considers the four books to be "a single novel" published serially for reasons of length and duration. The series has sold over 10 million copies in 40 countries.
Ann Goldstein is an American editor and translator from the Italian language. She is best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Quartet. She was the panel chair for translated fiction at the US National Book Award in 2022. She was awarded the PEN Renato Poggioli prize in 1994 and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2008.
The Days of Abandonment is a 2002 Italian novel by Elena Ferrante first published in English in 2005, translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Europa Editions. The novel tells the story of an Italian woman living in Turin whose husband abruptly leaves her after fifteen years together.
My Brilliant Friend is an Italian- and Neapolitan-language coming-of-age drama television series created by Saverio Costanzo for HBO, RAI, and TIMvision. Named after the first of four novels in the Neapolitan Novels series by Elena Ferrante, the series will adapt the entire literary work into four eight-episode seasons. My Brilliant Friend is a co-production between Italian production companies Wildside, Fandango, The Apartment Pictures, Mowe and international film groups Umedia and Fremantle.
Europa Editions UK is an independent British publishing house. It was founded in 2011 by Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola Ferri, the owners and publishers of the Italian press company Edizioni E/O. In a 2013 interview, Sandro Ferri said the company was "born with the intention to create bridges between cultures."
Andrea Marcolongo is an Italian writer.
The Lying Life of Adults is an Italian and Neapolitan-language coming-of-age drama television series created by Edoardo De Angelis, based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. It was released internationally by Netflix on 4 January 2023.
In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing is a book of essays published in 2021 by Italian writer Elena Ferrante.
Frantumaglia is a non-fiction book written by Italian author Elena Ferrante. The book reflects on her writing process over 20 years and has been republished to reflect her experiences writing the Neapolitan Novels.
Incidental Inventions is a non-fiction book published by writer Elena Ferrante in 2019. The book contains the columns published by the author in English newspaper The Guardian and translated by Ann Goldstein.
The Beach at Night is a children's novel written by Italian writer Elena Ferrante.
The Lost Daughter is a novel published by writer Elena Ferrante in 2006, in Italian, and translated to English by Ann Goldstein in 2008.
Troubling Love is the first novel published by Italian writer Elena Ferrante. It was originally published in 1992, but only translated to English, by Ann Goldstein, in 2006, following the critical success of Ferrante's following novel, The Days of Abandonment.
The Story of the Lost Child is a 2014 novel written by Italian author Elena Ferrante. It is the fourth and final installment of her Neapolitan Novels, preceded by My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. It was translated to English by Ann Goldstein in 2015.
A Girl Returned is a novel by Donatella Di Pietrantonio. It was first published by Einaudi in 2017.
