Elena Ferrante in Translation: A Panel Discussion

For American audiences, the work of the anonymous, yet world-renowned Italian writer Elena Ferrante comes to us mediated through another voice—her English translator, Ann Goldstein. Goldstein is a portal into Ferrante’s visionary female-centric epic tales, including her quartet of bestselling Neapolitan novels, now adapted into the HBO series My Brilliant Friend. Goldstein’s latest Ferrante translation is The Lying Life of Adults: the story of an adolescent girl struggling to find herself and her place within late twentieth century Naples. Join Goldstein, Ferrante scholars and enthusiasts Katherine Hill, and Merve Emre for a panel discussion moderated by Greta Johnsen (Nerdette Podcast) on The Lying Life of Adults and the scope of Ferrante’s literary impact, from Naples to Chicago.

The program is generously underwritten by the Walter E. Heller Foundation.

This week’s programs presented with the support of Bank of America.

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[alisonlutton]

I’m watching this late but am struck by the discussion of time, Naples and place. To me an element of the power of both Lying Life and the Neapolitan novels is their very specific sense of place, specific social structures of class and gender that characters absorb and use and push against. So many contemporary American novels just wander around a middle anywhere, depict or assume middle and upper middle class lives, in interchangeable small towns or big cities. Ferrante’s characters live in very specific places, times, and with societal class identities just like we readers do. That is what makes her stories and characters so complex and real, and easy to identify with in comparison to the less authentic character types moved around in technically complex plots in so many current American novels.

[Susannauna]

I’m interested in what the translator contributes to our understanding of the novels, how does this being a translation change the books.

[pinodesanto]

Elena Ferrante is the subject and expression of the Neapolitan nation. Only the outline is Italian.
success is due only to that land and if it becomes universal, it is only thanks to the Neapolitan genius. A country like Italy from the Italian unity has always proved hostile towards the Neapolitan people. A unit of the country never wanted by the Neapolitans that was imposed with weapons and bayonets. We claim the role today of being a great capital, today relegated to the provincial capital abandoned to its destiny despised by an Italian rogue state.