My work stops at publication. If the books don't contain in themselves their reasons for being - questions and answers - it means I was wrong to have them published.

Elena Ferrante

Categorized in : Book Mean Questions And Answers

The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.

traps treatment essentials

Climbing the economic ladder has been very hard for me; I still feel a great deal of guilt towards those I left behind.

ladders climbing guilt

As a girl - twelve, thirteen years old - I was absolutely certain that a good book had to have a man as its hero, and that depressed me.

girl hero book

Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

expression feelings writing

He was going through one of those moments that you read about in books, when a character reacts in an unexpectedly extreme way to the normal discontents of living.

character book way

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as... by Elena Ferrante

Those who write need that "willing suspension of disbelief ", as Coleridge called it.

disbelief writing needs

I no longer protect myself from the world I grew up in. Rather, today I try to protect the feelings I have for that world, the emotional space where my desire to write first took hold, and still grows.

emotional space writing

Elena Ferrante is the author of several novels. There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself - perhaps even too much - in her own writing, the place where her creative life transpires in absolute fullness.

too-much creative writing

At most, I may write when I am disturbed by something. I have recently discovered the pleasure of finding written answers to written questions.

answers writing may