{"product_id":"the-ferrante-letters-9780231194563","title":"The Ferrante Letters","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e, four critics create a series of epistolary readings of the Neapolitan Quartet that also develops new ways of reading and thinking together. In a series of intertwined, original, and daring readings of Elena Ferrante’s work and her fictional world, they strike a tone that falls between the seminar and the book club.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith fiery insight and feminist spirit, they have written a fitting companion to Ferrante’s books. * Booklist (starred review) *\u003cbr\u003eThe intimate tone lends a beguiling humanity to the book, inducing a pleasure more often associated with novels: the pleasure of character. * New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003eA truly innovative approach to understanding the author-reader  connection made all the more compelling for having one of the 20th  century's greatest literary works at its core. * Library Journal *\u003cbr\u003eThe combination of intellectual rigor and personal reaction makes this fascinating reading for Ferrante fans. * Publishers Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eIf \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e is meant to be an experiment in what would happen if boundaries, forms, and the shape of literary criticism were to dissolve and the opinions of critics blurred into one another, it is one that the authors recognize as both an exciting and frightening possibility. * New Republic *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e gives us a unique opportunity to read—or reread—the Neapolitan novels with four distinct guides beside us, both literary and personal, posing questions and offering insights, analysis, and discussion that enrich and deepen our experience of the books. -- Ann Goldstein, translator of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters \u003c\/i\u003eis a smart, beautiful, often moving meditation on the experience of reading the Neapolitan Quartet. This collection of letters and essays deftly manages that tricky balance of the creative, the critical, and the personal. A magnificent accomplishment. -- Namwali Serpell, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Old Drift: A Novel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese four smart feminist critics reflect on the Neapolitan novels' exploration of women's friendship, intellectual labor, and personal lives. Reading \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e feels like you have stumbled upon your favorite reading group talking about your favorite author. It captures the way critical thinking should work, not in isolation but in conversation. -- Pamela Thurschwell, University of Sussex\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e, expertise and passion dovetail to great effect. This absorptive, idiosyncratic book is a work of collective criticism that offers a set of rigorous, convivial, and stylish readings of its primary texts, staging the critical act as also a creative one. This book reveals that the form literary criticism takes is as important as its content. -- Sarah Blackwood, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Portrait's Subject: Inventing Inner Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile it is primarily Ferrante devotees who will find this book most intriguing, those interested in alternative modes of critical inquiry should take a look as well. A sharp and lively book for fans and scholars. * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003eThis book is a must-read for anyone who loves Elena Ferrante and for anyone who wants to think about new directions in literary criticism. * Bookriot *\u003cbr\u003eIf you are new at the Ferrante's world this one will be a great introduction...Highly recommended. * Il Feminile *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e is a bold, often inspiring attempt to rethink literary criticism and teaching practices on a collective basis, bridging the personal, critical and pleasurable. * Times Higher Education *\u003cbr\u003eI would heartily recommend \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e to fellow Ferrante fans, to feminist scholars, to readers interested in collective critical experiments. * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eWhat Chihaya, Emre, Hill, and Richards have created might cater more to the cultivated reader of Ferrante than the scholar, yet academics stand to learn much from as daring and novel a form of criticism as this one. * World Literature Today *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e is extremely absorbing. It’s rare to come across university-nurtured criticism, informed by theory, that is jargon-free and studded with insight. * Virginia Quarterly Review *\u003cbr\u003eI was thoroughly compelled by the rigor and candor with which Chihaya, Emre, Hill, and Richards explore the intimacies that readers create through and with novels—and by their readiness in \u003ci\u003eThe Ferrante Letters\u003c\/i\u003e to put their own reading lives under the microscope while they do so. I want to continue to read with these four critics, jointly and severally. They certainly should be your companions as well, dear readers, the next time all of us, severally or jointly, read Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet. -- Deidre Lynch * Novel: A Forum on Fiction *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction: Collective Criticism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eI. Letters (2015)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy Brilliant Friend\u003cbr\u003eThe Story of a New Name\u003cbr\u003eThose Who Leave and Those Who Stay\u003cbr\u003eThe Story of the Lost Child\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eII. Essays (2018)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnform, by Sarah Chihaya\u003cbr\u003eThe Story of a Fiction, by Katherine Hill\u003cbr\u003eThe Queer Counterfactual, by Jill Richards\u003cbr\u003eThe Cage of Authorship, by Merve Emre\u003cbr\u003eAfterword\u003cbr\u003eAppendix: Guest Letters, by Sara Marcus, Marissa Brostoff, Lili Loofbourow, Cecily Swanson, and Amy Schiller\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eBibliography","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49400347033943,"sku":"9780231194563","price":58.9,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231194563.jpg?v=1730470451","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-ferrante-letters-9780231194563","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}