Incidental Inventions

By Elena Ferrante

Deal Ends: Thu 11th June

"Fifty-one columns, short in length but long on wisdom" from the bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, an HBO original series (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).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" (The 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."A masterclass in style: direct and clear and all the more resonant for it." —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 Review "The result is fifty-one columns, short in length but long on wisdom, on topics ranging from pregnancy and daughters to lies and confessions. As with her fiction, Ferrante's voice here is clear, eloquent, and powerful."-- "Minneapolis Star-Tribune" About the Author Hillary Huber, a Los Angeles-based voice talent with hundreds of commercials and promos under her belt, was bitten by the audiobook bug in 2005. She now records books on a regular basis and has been nominated for several Audie Awards and won numerous Earphones Awards. ANN GOLDSTEIN is an editor at The New Yorker. She has translated works by, among others, Elena Ferrante, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Primo Levi, Giacomo Leopardi, and Alessandro Baricco, and is the editor of The Complete Works of Primo Levi in English. She has been the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and awards from the Italian Foreign Ministry and from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Elena Ferrante is the pseudonym of an Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, among other languages. Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels are among her best known works.