Elena Ferrante is notoriously private. Despite the staggering international success of what are known as the Neapolitan Novels – My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name and Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay – she has never given an interview and never does public appearances. Even her name is a nom de plume. In September, The Story of the Lost Child, the long-awaited fourth in the series, is to be published and this month she talked to The Paris Review, about the art of fiction including how she starts a new book.
FERRANTE: I don’t think anyone really knows how a story takes shape. When it’s done you try to explain how it happened, but every effort, at least in my case, is insufficient. There is a before, made up of fragments of memory, and an after, when the story begins. But before and after, I have to admit, are useful only in answering your question now in an intelligible way.
