Elena Ferrante as World Literature

Stiliana Milkova Rousseva is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian at Oberlin College, USA.

• Acknowledgments Chronology of Elena Ferrante’s Works and Abbreviations1. Introduction: Elena Ferrante, World Literature, and the Work of Literary Translation World Literature and the Creation of Elena FerranteFerrante’s Feminine ImaginaryFerrante’s Female GenealogiesThe Translator as Seamstress: Figures of Translation from the Periphery to the CenterElena Ferrante as World Literature: An Overview2. Frantumaglia and Smarginatura: The Borders of a Universal Feminine ImaginaryIncisions and Inscriptions of the BodyThe Parameters of Frantumaglia Smarginatura in the Neapolitan NovelsThe “Mothers” of Smarginatura Women Who Write 3. Binding and Unbinding the Maternal Body and Voice Desire and Disgust for the MotherConflations and Inversions: Mothers, Daughters, Dolls Enclosing the Maternal Body: Cellars, Locked Apartments, ClothesLaughing Bodies and Grotesque Gestures Dead Mothers and Corporeal Flows 4. Outside the Frame: The Aesthetics of Female Creativity and AuthorshipInside the Frame: The (Nude) Female Body-as-PartsInside the Frame: Mirrors, Collages, Still LifesOutside the Frame: Creating a Female Artistic LegacyThe Neapolitan Novels and Female Friendship, Writing, Authorship5. Mapping Urban Feminine Topographies Walking the Streets of Topographic Memory in Troubling LoveSymbolic and Literal Labyrinth in the Neapolitan NovelsFrom Naples to Turin: Urban Itineraries of Abandonment Epilogue: Reverse Maps, Familial Objects, and Open Frames in The Lying Life of AdultsNotesWorks Cited Index

Stiliana Milkova has written a compelling and highly readable study of Ferrante’s fiction [that] is interested more than anything about what the text itself reveals about Ferrante’s poetics and politics, explaining as a result, what makes Ferrante’s texts so addictive to read and such a pleasure to analyze. This one is for the academics and casual fans alike.