She is an amazing writer. The story and the characters seem so real it feels as it it had to be a real story. When you read it you would understand why if in fact it was a true story, why the author would want to remain hidden. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet used to be my favorite book until I read My Brillian Friend.
Ohh, I had no idea Elena was a mystery identity. You make a compelling case. I don't know if we will ever know the truth, but it does make me happy that there are real life mysteries like this. About seemingly innocent topics.
There is a writer called Carmen Mola, a female Spanish name, but she is not a woman but three male writers behind the books. In the past women signed as men.
Why couldn't it have been the other way round - the novels were primarily written by Anita Raja, but brilliantly edited thereafter by Domenico Starnone? That would explain the 'common DNA'. Given the extraordinary understanding of the female psyche the books display, it is very, very difficult to believe they were written by a man.
I recently purchased the entire series (after watching the TV series on HBO) and am halfway through the first novel. The mystery over the identity of the author is fascinating! I had no idea! This is my first exposure to Ferrante's writings and I will mostly likely read the original Italian versions as a way to (hopefully) re-activate the Italian i studied in college. I'm looking forward to discovering other Italian novelists as I explore this rabbit hole. Thanks for your video - very well done and very informative!
Do you remember the passage in her/his book The Lying Life Of Adults where she, Giovanna and her friend give themselves pleasure with a doll, one facing the other? Didn’t you find that that is not a female “game” as she describes it? I might be mistaken, but I am a woman and don’t think that is something women do with friends. This is something I understand is something boys do while they are young in many different ways. A girl would never “play” this way with her female friends. What do you think? It’s at the beginning of the book in page 30 in my paperback edition.
this is a late response, but I disagree. Sexuality depends on many things like how you grow up and I am curious what aspect of that game you think would only be invented by "boys"?
I’m more inclined to believe that the person who invents the plots and writes the first drafts is a prisoner in the cellar - I’ve seen similar cases on TV!
The money trail proves that the author/s belong to the Anita Raja-Domenico Starnone household. But the algorithm only proves that Elena Ferrante writing is more similar to Starnone than any other writer... unfortunately, there are no Anita Raja books to compare with. It could be possible that, if there were Anita Raja books, they would end being more similar to Ferrante´s than Starnone´s. My theory is that Anita Raja is Lenú trying to tell her story; but different from Lenú, she never had the guts or the self-confidence to publish her writings... until her husband/novelist "Nino" took her writings and edit them into coherent novels, insering his style in them. That also explains why Anita never has come forward as Ferrante, as she would have to explain that she is not the sole authors of the novels. I´m also thinking that Anita, being an even more insecure Lenu, will absolutely hate book tours, press, events, awards, speeches... so being an anonymous author is a fair place for her to be.
@@AnnNovella how do we know his wife didn't help co write his other works? Something doesn't add up. I cannot accept a man would be capable of having such a deeply feminine perspective, it's almost a betrayal to its readers.
Interesting! If Elena is a man I wonder how fans of the more female centric would feel about that? Hmmm. Literary mysteries can be fascinating. Maybe some time you could do a video on Anne Declos whose identity as the author of The Story of O was secret. (For me the story of the novel’s creation and history is much more interesting than the book itself.) Thanks so much!
If an author who is not female, takes the identity of a female for the sake of getting published - or whatever other reason - they are taking advantage of a "marginalized" group in the publishing world for their own benefit. And if their book(s) are eligible for the Women's Prize, or a women's prize, it wouldn't be right. I think there's a sense of entitlement that I struggle with in this scenario - if in fact Ferrante is a man.
@@MIDDLEoftheBookMARCH This makes no sense. A work of literature is as good as it is, no matter who wrote it. If a book deserves a prize then it deserves a prize. There's a reason in medicine and science that they use double-blind studies. And I question the notion that women are a marginalized group. Certainly not in publishing.
@@MIDDLEoftheBookMARCH Totally agree. If the work stands on its own, then you can choose a pen name that aligns with your actual gender. If you're assuming/hoping for more sales if you sell a book by a woman author, that...needs unpacking. That said, I'm convinced that EF is either a full-on collaboration, or Anita Raja has always helped Starrnone and that is why the texts are similar. Sadly, the latter is more likely, based on how many amazing men were actually propped up by their wives.
I thought it was known that she is Anita Raja. There was a whole controversy about the investigations revealing her identity in the Italian press a few years ago.
I have often thought that Ferrante really is Starnone. The other possibility is that the two are married, and they write the novels together, because the writing is so similar.
Intresting. Love, love Ferrante ❤️ And it’s actually quite nice not to have the writer or writers in the focus, but rather the books themselves. However, the mystery teases imagination :)
A nice detective short story. Thanks for sharing I like to hear stories about things “behind the book” ie mysterious writer, a woman novelist who turns out to be a man and vice versa. I am sure that there were and continue to be a lot of ghost writers as a way to protect their lives possibly but also cause for example for me it would be odd to pick up a romance novel written by a man or an inside look into let’s say sports writer by a woman. Not that each one is not capable to do so but because of the time I was a teen (1980s) and was really getting into reading. I hope this all makes sense. Keeping you in thought as your play is being reviewed and hopefully picked up.
In my early days as an author of pulp action novels, many colleagues, to earn some extra money, wrote romantic novels for female readers, always under a female pseudonym. As a male author writing under a female pseudonym, you can get away with a lot that would make you seem ambiguous as a man.
And the real question is, if you truly believe it does not, why are you here in the first place? Is it that you have nothing better to do than comment on random TH-cam videos and pose existential questions? 😎
I haven’t read the books, but from watching the series I suspected the author was male. Too much didn’t ring true about female friendships. Also I started doing my own research and the fact that the writer kept his/her identity a secret made me more suspicious. If the writer is a male that’s extremely important. The mostly female readership truly believed a woman wrote them. Big part of the books popularity and what made him so much money.
We’ll I’m in love wit young Nino he’s handsome in a geeky way I guess iv always went for jocks but nino got my attention point blank 😂sorry not sorry I no he’s a lying douch but cute one
I’m stating this outright that I know this is extremely childish, so comments don’t come for me, but as long as Ferrante remains unknown I refuse to read her/him/them. My running joke is that she’s an elderly Norwegian man, but I take this stance because I feel I was burned with the “author” J.T. LeRoy and I’m not going to make that mistake again- fool me once… The only viable backstory I’ve come up for justification is that they were a witness to a Mafia crime and must live in exile under an assumed name for their protection and became a writer out of isolation and boredom. And if that it the case, that is a memoir I would love to read. So, if you solve the mystery and it doesn’t completely piss me off reasonwise I would be willing to read her/him/them. Lest you think I hold an isolated grudge, I felt the same way with the Italian children’s book series Geronimo Stilton, which was supposedly written by the fictional main character of the mouse Geronimo Stilton and had no other author listed. I even perused the extensive English court papers when the Stilton Cheese company sued him/her/them claiming trademark infringement using the term Stilton. (Why no Geronimo Parmigiana or Geronimo Buffalo Mozzarella for an Italian mouse, who knows - not to mention the problematic Native American appropriated Geronimo name as well???) Anyways, I did not find the author at the time, and this was problematic because as a children’s librarian I refused to catalog and shelve them under the name “Stilton, Geronimo” after teaching my students the importance of the author’s name and doing extensive author studies. They ended up in a stand-alone display and had title entries in the catalog. The author has since then become known, but I don’t work as a school librarian in control of my own collection, but I surly would have recataloged them with the actual author now. This is quite part of American library history, in the early days Lewis Carroll books were catalogued under “Dodgson, Charles” and Mark Twain’s books under “Clemens, Samuel,” and this was still true in the town library of my youth, where when you looked up “Twain, Mark,” there was a card catalog entry that said “See Clemens, Samuel.” And yeah I’m old, but not ancient. It was just now refreshing to see that the Yale Archives still has the “Samuel Langhorne Clemens Collection,” and has not given in to using that moniker of Mark Twain. And I for one would petition the libraries of America to reclassify all books by the real name of the author formerly known as “Eleanor Ferrante,” should the deceitful party come to be known.
Nino Saratone is a character in the novels.
Sarratore*
@@Ohnoitsruthio thank you! I knew something was wrong! 🤦🏻♀️
Sorry to ask (had to): did you read the books? "L'amica geniale" ? Asking as Nino's anagram on the name and the wrong name seemed a bit far fetched.
@@luciacioara of course I’ve read them. 🤓
She is an amazing writer. The story and the characters seem so real it feels as it it had to be a real story. When you read it you would understand why if in fact it was a true story, why the author would want to remain hidden. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet used to be my favorite book until I read My Brillian Friend.
I have read them all, and the science proves that it is the hubby who wrote it.
Or he, maybe.
Poor Ken
Ohh, I had no idea Elena was a mystery identity. You make a compelling case. I don't know if we will ever know the truth, but it does make me happy that there are real life mysteries like this. About seemingly innocent topics.
Don't know these folk or the writing but I enjoy the mystery
Me too!
Thank you, that seems plausible.🌺
There is a writer called Carmen Mola, a female Spanish name, but she is not a woman but three male writers behind the books. In the past women signed as men.
Sort of reminds me of The Wife. But in that story, she really wrote the books. I love a good mystery.
Loved that movie!
Why couldn't it have been the other way round - the novels were primarily written by Anita Raja, but brilliantly edited thereafter by Domenico Starnone? That would explain the 'common DNA'. Given the extraordinary understanding of the female psyche the books display, it is very, very difficult to believe they were written by a man.
I recently purchased the entire series (after watching the TV series on HBO) and am halfway through the first novel. The mystery over the identity of the author is fascinating! I had no idea! This is my first exposure to Ferrante's writings and I will mostly likely read the original Italian versions as a way to (hopefully) re-activate the Italian i studied in college. I'm looking forward to discovering other Italian novelists as I explore this rabbit hole. Thanks for your video - very well done and very informative!
Do you remember the passage in her/his book The Lying Life Of Adults where she, Giovanna and her friend give themselves pleasure with a doll, one facing the other? Didn’t you find that that is not a female “game” as she describes it? I might be mistaken, but I am a woman and don’t think that is something women do with friends. This is something I understand is something boys do while they are young in many different ways. A girl would never “play” this way with her female friends. What do you think? It’s at the beginning of the book in page 30 in my paperback edition.
Yes I remember that scene and you are right!
this is a late response, but I disagree. Sexuality depends on many things like how you grow up and I am curious what aspect of that game you think would only be invented by "boys"?
I’m more inclined to believe that the person who invents the plots and writes the first drafts is a prisoner in the cellar - I’ve seen similar cases on TV!
True!
The money trail proves that the author/s belong to the Anita Raja-Domenico Starnone household. But the algorithm only proves that Elena Ferrante writing is more similar to Starnone than any other writer... unfortunately, there are no Anita Raja books to compare with. It could be possible that, if there were Anita Raja books, they would end being more similar to Ferrante´s than Starnone´s. My theory is that Anita Raja is Lenú trying to tell her story; but different from Lenú, she never had the guts or the self-confidence to publish her writings... until her husband/novelist "Nino" took her writings and edit them into coherent novels, insering his style in them. That also explains why Anita never has come forward as Ferrante, as she would have to explain that she is not the sole authors of the novels. I´m also thinking that Anita, being an even more insecure Lenu, will absolutely hate book tours, press, events, awards, speeches... so being an anonymous author is a fair place for her to be.
Heh, with that thumbnail I was expecting "No more pen name, and no more clothes!" 🤣🤣
lol
I just find hard to believe that a men will write that well from a women’s point of view
But it really is him. They used the same software that exposed JK Rawling as Galbraith.
@@AnnNovella how do we know his wife didn't help co write his other works? Something doesn't add up. I cannot accept a man would be capable of having such a deeply feminine perspective, it's almost a betrayal to its readers.
I’ve never read her/him I’m not sure I want to know. Aloha
loved this...had seen some time ago a study of the text not specifically, i don't think, identifying the author but concluding elena was a man.
A compelling case! 😊
Interesting! If Elena is a man I wonder how fans of the more female centric would feel about that? Hmmm. Literary mysteries can be fascinating. Maybe some time you could do a video on Anne Declos whose identity as the author of The Story of O was secret. (For me the story of the novel’s creation and history is much more interesting than the book itself.) Thanks so much!
A question I've wondered about for years...
If someone wants to write under a pen name why not let them be?
Because I’m nosy? 🫣
And if you leave clues, then you want to be discovered 🤷🏻♀️
If an author who is not female, takes the identity of a female for the sake of getting published - or whatever other reason - they are taking advantage of a "marginalized" group in the publishing world for their own benefit. And if their book(s) are eligible for the Women's Prize, or a women's prize, it wouldn't be right. I think there's a sense of entitlement that I struggle with in this scenario - if in fact Ferrante is a man.
@@MIDDLEoftheBookMARCH This makes no sense. A work of literature is as good as it is, no matter who wrote it. If a book deserves a prize then it deserves a prize. There's a reason in medicine and science that they use double-blind studies. And I question the notion that women are a marginalized group. Certainly not in publishing.
@@MIDDLEoftheBookMARCH Totally agree. If the work stands on its own, then you can choose a pen name that aligns with your actual gender. If you're assuming/hoping for more sales if you sell a book by a woman author, that...needs unpacking.
That said, I'm convinced that EF is either a full-on collaboration, or Anita Raja has always helped Starrnone and that is why the texts are similar. Sadly, the latter is more likely, based on how many amazing men were actually propped up by their wives.
I thought it was known that she is Anita Raja. There was a whole controversy about the investigations revealing her identity in the Italian press a few years ago.
No, last conclusions are Starnone. They used the same software which revealed that Robert Galbraith and JK Rowling were one person.
@@AnnNovella cool! I believe Raja and Starnone are married- so it adds up
@@TheGerbita yes they are
I have often thought that Ferrante really is Starnone. The other possibility is that the two are married, and they write the novels together, because the writing is so similar.
i honestly think it was a concept/project that has gotten put of hand
Wow.... incredible ❤
Intresting. Love, love Ferrante ❤️ And it’s actually quite nice not to have the writer or writers in the focus, but rather the books themselves. However, the mystery teases imagination :)
@@SculptExpress-gv8jp It’s true, it doesn’t really matter.
Sarratore is NOT an anagram of Starnone.
A nice detective short story. Thanks for sharing I like to hear stories about things “behind the book” ie mysterious writer, a woman novelist who turns out to be a man and vice versa. I am sure that there were and continue to be a lot of ghost writers as a way to protect their lives possibly but also cause for example for me it would be odd to pick up a romance novel written by a man or an inside look into let’s say sports writer by a woman. Not that each one is not capable to do so but because of the time I was a teen (1980s) and was really getting into reading. I hope this all makes sense. Keeping you in thought as your play is being reviewed and hopefully picked up.
so, no answer?
Fascinating 🧐👍
Wait till Friday. 🤓
In my early days as an author of pulp action novels, many colleagues, to earn some extra money, wrote romantic novels for female readers, always under a female pseudonym. As a male author writing under a female pseudonym, you can get away with a lot that would make you seem ambiguous as a man.
Why does any of this matter?
And the real question is, if you truly believe it does not, why are you here in the first place? Is it that you have nothing better to do than comment on random TH-cam videos and pose existential questions? 😎
I haven’t read the books, but from watching the series I suspected the author was male. Too much didn’t ring true about female friendships. Also I started doing my own research and the fact that the writer kept his/her identity a secret made me more suspicious. If the writer is a male that’s extremely important. The mostly female readership truly believed a woman wrote them. Big part of the books popularity and what made him so much money.
absolutely not. Elena Ferrante is a woman. a man could never, ever write female perspective on life the way she does.
A real artist doesn’t want or need to hide his/her true identity, why? That’s not right , but I love her writings.
It is actually seems legit, because all the thoughts of “her” female characters are around men, and it’s definitely what men think about female mind
We’ll I’m in love wit young Nino he’s handsome in a geeky way I guess iv always went for jocks but nino got my attention point blank 😂sorry not sorry I no he’s a lying douch but cute one
I’m stating this outright that I know this is extremely childish, so comments don’t come for me, but as long as Ferrante remains unknown I refuse to read her/him/them. My running joke is that she’s an elderly Norwegian man, but I take this stance because I feel I was burned with the “author” J.T. LeRoy and I’m not going to make that mistake again- fool me once… The only viable backstory I’ve come up for justification is that they were a witness to a Mafia crime and must live in exile under an assumed name for their protection and became a writer out of isolation and boredom. And if that it the case, that is a memoir I would love to read.
So, if you solve the mystery and it doesn’t completely piss me off reasonwise I would be willing to read her/him/them. Lest you think I hold an isolated grudge, I felt the same way with the Italian children’s book series Geronimo Stilton, which was supposedly written by the fictional main character of the mouse Geronimo Stilton and had no other author listed. I even perused the extensive English court papers when the Stilton Cheese company sued him/her/them claiming trademark infringement using the term Stilton. (Why no Geronimo Parmigiana or Geronimo Buffalo Mozzarella for an Italian mouse, who knows - not to mention the problematic Native American appropriated Geronimo name as well???)
Anyways, I did not find the author at the time, and this was problematic because as a children’s librarian I refused to catalog and shelve them under the name “Stilton, Geronimo” after teaching my students the importance of the author’s name and doing extensive author studies. They ended up in a stand-alone display and had title entries in the catalog. The author has since then become known, but I don’t work as a school librarian in control of my own collection, but I surly would have recataloged them with the actual author now.
This is quite part of American library history, in the early days Lewis Carroll books were catalogued under “Dodgson, Charles” and Mark Twain’s books under “Clemens, Samuel,” and this was still true in the town library of my youth, where when you looked up “Twain, Mark,” there was a card catalog entry that said “See Clemens, Samuel.” And yeah I’m old, but not ancient. It was just now refreshing to see that the Yale Archives still has the “Samuel Langhorne Clemens Collection,” and has not given in to using that moniker of Mark Twain.
And I for one would petition the libraries of America to reclassify all books by the real name of the author formerly known as “Eleanor Ferrante,” should the deceitful party come to be known.
Wrong😂
hi Ann, cool mystery, this.I agree with @readingwithlaurane2490 that the existence of mysteries about innocent topics is a joy.