The Passion of Elena Ferrante

Award-winning translator Ann Goldstein (The New Yorker) and NYU professor Rebecca Falkoff will discuss the anonymous Italian author, whose devastatingly honest novels—particularly the epic Neapolitan tetralogy—have moved readers to a rare and visceral passion. Their dialogue will reflect upon the powerful emotions narrated and elicited by the novels. Ann Goldstein will speak about her work as a translator, and about the ways in which the novels foreground translation through references to dialect. Rebecca Falkoff will talk about the cultural context of Ferrante’s work, and the different reception of the Neapolitan novels in Italy and the United States.