Elena Ferrante’s Weekend column
The bestselling Italian novelist behind the highly acclaimed Neapolitan series writes a weekly column on life, love, the female experience and everything in between
Elena Ferrante: this is my last column, after a year that has scared and inspired me
Writing every Saturday has meant the permanent exposure of fragments of myself. But I am indebted to you, my readers
Elena Ferrante: A writer’s talent is like a fishing net, catching daily experiences that can educate
We fall in love with a text partly for the way it unwittingly informs us
Elena Ferrante on climate change: ‘I've become obsessive. Black skies terrify me'
I never worried about the weather – until now
Elena Ferrante: ‘I hate having my photo taken’
The woman in the frame doesn’t match the one in my mind
Elena Ferrante: ‘If people still told their stories in verse, I would be too embarrassed to write’
Writing prose with the rhythm, the harmony, the images that characterise a poem is a death trap
Elena Ferrante: I like to rewrite stories – swapping men for women. It doesn’t always work
A woman who decides to give it all up rarely turns back, while men generally, at a certain point, need their Ithaca
Elena Ferrante: ‘I don’t believe people who swear they’re not the jealous type’
We’ve all experienced it – not necessarily in love, but in every kind of relationship
Elena Ferrante: when a friend died at 38, I thought that would be my allotted time, too
When I got to 38, things changed. I was pleased I had made it, and thought, ‘Everything after this is a bonus’
Elena Ferrante on the screen adaptation of her book: 'I want to say, let's give it up'
Stripped down, the novel suddenly appears to the writer a trick of literary words, a fraud
This is a great time for writing by women – so why are we still considered second-rate?
The cliche dies hard: women are emotional; we please
Elena Ferrante: ‘I devote myself to plants. Is it because I am afraid of them?’
Plants are prisoners, yet they extend, twist, creep their way in
Elena Ferrante: ‘Maggie Gyllenhaal is filming one of my books. It’s her story to tell now'
It’s important for me – for her, for all women – that her work be hers and turn out well
Elena Ferrante: ‘People who are enemies for no reason fascinate me'
How did the hostility start?
Elena Ferrante: ‘Is there a formula for a lasting relationship?'
A friend, married for 48 years, says there is
Elena Ferrante: ‘I have never given an interview, but journalists have helped me make sense of my life’
Against the face-to-face encounter, I have preferred – because of my own limitations – a written correspondence
Elena Ferrante: ‘Beauty triumphs in childhood photos, along with charm, joy, happy laughter’
Missing is the distress, tiredness, irritation, fear, tantrums
Elena Ferrante: ‘Solaris is not Tarkovsky’s best film, but it made the greatest impression on me’
Solaris is astonishing because the book that inspired it doesn’t seem to contain Tarkovsky’s film
Elena Ferrante: ‘One morning I looked at myself in the mirror and recognised my mother’
For a long time, I felt that to stop loving her was the only way I had to love myself
Elena Ferrante: ‘I love upheaval. As a child, I would rush out into a storm’
I am convinced that change has a definite positive side. It helps us realize, for example, that we’ve accumulated a lot of useless things
‘I love children who lie for no reason. After all, I used to be one’
Sometimes, someone would say: it’s too good, it can’t really have happened. And then I was ashamed…
About 45 results for Elena Ferrante’s Weekend column 
