Elena Ferrante: ‘I’ll Spare You Even my Presence’
Image Credit: Wayne Miller/Magnum
In an information-saturated world, Elena Ferrante stands alone. While her name is known around the world and her work is widely read, wholeheartedly loved, and critically acclaimed, Ferrante herself has managed to keep almost every detail about her identity unknown. I stopped myself from typing the word ‘secret’, as I think it’s unfair to say that she is hiding from anybody or anything. Instead, in a world where ‘sharing our authentic self’ has seemingly become a necessity or even expectation, Ferrante has chosen to share her work and not her self.
‘I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t…’
I might be wrong, but I assume most admirers of Ferrante’s writing are not in the least perturbed by her anonymity – at most, it’s an interesting fact purely due to its rarity in a world full to the brim of celebrity authors on a conveyor belt of publicity rounds. This, I think, is why a relatively recent attempt by an Italian journalist to ‘out’ Ferrante was met with widespread unease by her fans. The forensic investigation that took months and involved an interrogation of accounting trails to find the ‘true’ Ferrante, resulted in a revelation that nobody asked for, and that has been dismissed by those named.
What Ferrante’s anonymity has done is allowed readers to read her work without any distraction or pre-judgements – we meet on the page with no prior knowledge of each other; in our minds, Ferrante is her work. This is not to say that there is no connection, intimacy or understanding in the reading experience, only that readers’ empathy and affinity with her books are held entirely with the characters and their experiences, which are a creative channel through which we can begin to understand ourselves.
Despite their setting, her work should never be dismissed as domestic; in each novel, Ferrante embarks on a bold and powerful project with ferocious beauty and linguistic intensity. Always grounded in the often tedious and painful facts of life, Ferrante chronicles the inner conflicts of women who have found themself distorted – and sometimes devastated – by societal hierarchies and dynamics, or who are confronting long-enduring effects of violence, misogyny, and the complexities of domesticity. Ferrante’s self-confessed fascination with ‘tangled knots’ is clear; whether it's friendship, familial or romantic relationships, her writing is candid, complex and often savage, exploring experiences of motherhood, abuse, divorce, repulsion, vulnerability and jealousy with vigour, linguistic flair, and above all, truth.
‘Our friendships […] are a terra incognita, chiefly to ourselves, a land without fixed rules. Anything and everything can happen to you, nothing is certain.’
Elena Ferrante
In a rare written interview, Ferrante recalls telling her publisher that she wouldn’t be doing any promotion for the publication of her book, as she said already done enough: she wrote it. So, in a world where everything and every person can be commercialised and monetised, Ferrante has ensured that the only thing for sale is her labour. And when the work is so good, why should we need anything more?
