My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels Book 1)

About this book

Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times bestselling enduring masterpiece (The Atlantic) about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples. Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples Elena Ferrantes four-volume story spans almost sixty years as its main characters the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator Elena become women wives mothers and leaders all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that in turn also transform the relationship between two women.