In the Margins is an enjoyable collection of essays on the pleasures of reading and writing, on a life lived on paper, and on the joys of literary adventure. The origin story of a prolific literary figure, these essays outline Elena Ferrante’s development as both a reader and writer and some of her major influences. Almost like a behind the scenes tour of her work.
— Russell, New YorkA NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER
A BEST BOOK OF 2022 (Air Mail)
Four new and revelatory essays by the author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter.
In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as "an oracle among authors." Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of "bad language" and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women's truth; she proposes a choral fusion of feminine talent as she brilliantly discourses on the work of Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Ingeborg Bachmann, and many others.
Here is a subtle yet candid book by "one of the great novelists of our time" about adventures in literature, both in and out of the margins.
"Everyone should read everything with Elena Ferrante's name on it."--The Boston Globe
