WULOLIFE
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Quartet 1) / Author: [Italy] Elena Ferrante / Publisher: People's Literature Publishing House
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Quartet 1) / Author: [Italy] Elena Ferrante / Publisher: People's Literature Publishing House
Description
Introduction · · · · · ·
Only if you are a woman will you know these ugly secrets
Two Women, 50 Years of Friendship and War
In the past five years, almost all European and American readers have been talking about her,
A global bestseller with millions of copies translated into 40 languages
Financial Times Women of the Year 2015
2016 Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World"
Hillary Clinton, Jonathan Franzen, James Wood, and James Franco are all her fans.
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My Brilliant Friend is the first of Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan Quartet", telling the story of the teenage years of two heroines, Lila and Elena. At the beginning of the story, Elena, who has already achieved success, receives a call from Lila's son Rino, saying that his mother has completely disappeared. Elena remembers Lila's prediction of her own fate, so she writes down the story of their lives...
Lila and Elena grew up together in a run-down community in Naples. They were inseparable and trusted each other, but they also regarded each other as their own secret mirror and struggled secretly.
Lila is smart and beautiful. She can confront the boys who bully her without fear, and she can also go to the feared Achille Karachi to get back the toys he took away. Elena envies Lila's learning talent and superhuman determination, but she has been secretly imitating Lila.
Lila's family did not support her to continue her studies, so she worked as a helper in the shoe repair shop that her father and brother struggled to maintain, and was pursued by several playboys. Elena, with love, jealousy and understanding for her friend, continued her studies alone, but she could not face the loss of competing with Lila.
Finally, the sixteen-year-old Lila decided to marry the butcher, but at the wedding, she discovered her husband's betrayal. Elena also stood at the entrance of the adult world, worried about her future and hesitant because of her vague affection for the avant-garde Nino.
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About the Author · · · · · ·
Elena Ferrante is currently the most popular and mysterious writer in Italy. Elena Ferrante is a pseudonym, and her true identity remains a mystery.
Elena Ferrante published her first novel, "Love Is Not Blind," in 1992, which quickly attracted attention and was made into a film of the same name by Italian director Mario Martone in 1995. Since then, she has published novels such as "The Days of Being Abandoned" (2002), "The Lost Daughter" (2006), "The Beach at Night" (2007) and the collection of essays and interviews "Uncertain Fragments" (2003).
From 2011 to 2014, Elena Ferrante published four related novels, My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave, Those Who Stay, and The Lost Child, at a frequency of one book per year. These four novels are known as the "Neapolitan Quartet". They describe the half-century friendship between two girls born in a poor community in Naples in an epic style.
The "Neapolitan Quartet" also set off a "Ferrante fever" around the world, with millions of readers moved by the extremely realistic, sharp and unvarnished description of female friendship in the book. Although the author has never disclosed her gender, the media and critics have judged her to be a woman from her highly "autobiographical" writing. In 2015, Elena Ferrante was named "Woman of the Year" by the Financial Times. In 2016, Time magazine selected Elena Ferrante as one of the "100 Most Influential Artists".