Incidental Inventions - by Elena Ferrante (Hardcover)

About the Book

Gathered here in a beautiful gift edition and accompanied by a new, original introduction by the author and Ucini's intelligent, witty, and beautiful illustrations, this volume is a must for all Ferrante fans.

Book Synopsis

Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called "one of the great novelists of our time" (New York Times).

"This is my last column, after a year that has scared and inspired me . . . I have written as an author of novels, taking on matters that are important to me and that--if I have the will and the time--I'd like to develop within real narrative mechanisms."

With these words, Elena Ferrante bid farewell to her year-long collaboration with the Guardian newspaper. For a full year, she wrote weekly articles, the subjects of which had been suggested by Guardian editors, making the writing process a sort of prolonged interlocution. The subjects ranged from first love to climate change, from enmity among women to the experience of seeing her novels adapted for film and TV.

Translated by Ann Goldstein, the acclaimed translator of Ferrante's novels, and accompanied by Andrea Ucini's intelligent, witty, and beautiful illustrations, this volume is a must for all curious readers.

Review Quotes

Praise for Incidental Inventions

"Both timely and deeply personal...this varied assembly of considerations is a portrait of an acclaimed storyteller's bold and singular voice."--Columbia Journal

"In prose that provokes and transforms, evoking wonder and tension in the most gratifying sense, these fragments of Ferrante ultimately cohere into a full, absorbing portrait of an enduring author."--Library Journal

"As with her fiction, Ferrante's voice here is clear, eloquent and powerful."--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"This essay collection is subtle. Ferrante's writing is akin to a whisper from one friend to another: It utters the truth one would rather not hear, but says it compactly and devastatingly."--Harvard Crimson

"Wide-ranging and curious, often 'charged with feeling' and always underscored by a sharp and careful intellect...Incidental Inventions is very much a masterclass in style."--The Saturday Paper

"If you are interested in the experience of having a drink with the author and listening to her muse on various subjects...here's your answer."--Vulture

"You'll never want to put this book down."--Better Reading

"Incidental Inventions is a more coherent and cohesive mapping of the writer's inner world and quotidian life--her desires, fears, ambitions, failures. Ferrante peeks, as it were, from behind the curtains-pages pictured on the book cover, revealing a sliver of herself."--Reading in Translation

"There are spontaneous splashes of colour, highly concentrated phrases and much rich, aphoristic profundity. Reading Ferrante reminds me of the wonderful tradition of European essayism lying behind high journalism."--Canberra Times

Praise for Elena Ferrante

"Ferrante can talk about politics, history, philosophy, sexuality, loneliness, and I willingly go with her, without ever questioning it. I don't know any [other] writer who can do that."--Beth Nguyen, San Francisco Chronicle

"Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before--it isn't easy to specify what this is--in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep."--Joanna Biggs, The London Review of Books

"Ferrante, in her unflinching willingness to lead us toward 'the mutable fury of things' places the readers inside intimate relations between with an irresistible and urgent immediacy."--Roger Cohen, The New York Review of Books

"Reading Ferrante is an extraordinary experience. There's a powerful and unsettling candor in her writing."--Nick Romeo, The Boston Globe

About the Author

Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), which was made into a film directed by Roberto Faenza, Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), adapted by Mario Martone, and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), soon to be a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey (Europa, 2016) and a children's picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016). The four volumes known as the "Neapolitan quartet" (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018.