#1: BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY My Brilliant Friend is entrenched as one of the premier examples of so-called autofiction, a category that has dominated the literature of the 21st century. Reading this uncompromising, unforgettable novel is like riding a bike on gravel: It's gritty and slippery and nerve-racking, all at the same time. * The New York Times *
Nothing quite like it has ever been published before . . . Brilliant novels, exquisitely translated. -- Meghan O'Rourke * The Guardian *
Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and in the world. * The Sunday Times *
Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship. * The TLS *
To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory. * The Times *
Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep. -- Joanna Biggs * LRB *
A modern classic. * The Times *
Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping. * The Daily Mail *
Elena Ferrante is an expert chronicler of adolescence and its many indignities, as well as its erratic, overwhelming passions. * The Observer *
Ferrante is a hypnotist. * The Spectator *
The beauty of these novels lies in the way they shun simplification, and also in how they articulate the intangible aches of the human experience. (14 books that will change your life) * Dazed *