In this and in other works, Ferrante reminds us what a gift anonymity can be to the reader. How refreshing to access words without fighting through the obscuring fog of a 'brand'.

The lucid, well-formed essays that make up In the Margins are written in an equally captivating voice.

... this collection of Ferrante’s lectures cannot be timelier in introducing Ferrante’s ideas and literary practices to a larger, global audience outside her immediate Italian-speaking following.

There’s a whiff of the graduate school seminar room, especially about the first three lectures here.

Expect, then, Ferrante fans to fall upon In the Margins – a slim essay collection on the pleasures of reading and writing – as much for any clues about its author as revelations about her childhood bibliography.

... thought-provoking and sincere.

Together, these four essays are the closest Ferrante has come to an articulation of her literary methodology.

... engaging, slyly disruptive.

Fans of the bestselling Italian novelist Elena Ferrante will delight in her new collection of eloquent, revelatory essays about what motivates (and bedevils) her as a writer.

Her anonymity...gives her a freedom in her fiction that is missing from her nonfiction work, which feels a bit circular and self-reinforcing. Still, we see glimpses of the shame, disappointment and struggle in these pages, albeit at a lower temperature. It is not at all surprising to discover the title of 'Pain and Pen.' If we are correct in assuming that Ferrante’s novels draw from her own life, it stands to reason that pain is a defining force. It also makes sense that this essay delves into her struggle to find her voice from under so many male writers.

The lectures offer considerable insight into her process and influences -- and how she has changed and adapted them over the years, noting some of the shifts and how they came about. Along with numerous specifics, she also shares the broadest strokes of her technique.

... pickings are slim.

Ferrante is serious — her touchstones as a reader here include Gertrude Stein, Samuel Beckett and Dante, who is the focus of the last essay. Two avant garde experimenters and a religious visionary might seem unusually literary obsessions for a devoted contemporary realist, but for Ferrante, they’re all writers who tangled with her central obsession, which is how to turn reality into art without deceitfully obscuring the process of doing it.

Although In the Margins may appeal most to Ferrante devotees like me eager to read about the ideas of fiction that led to novels like My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter, the book will draw in anyone curious about literature and its creation.

I margini e il dettato is a book filled with suggestions and musings that try to extract the elusive meaning of writing.

A rare peek behind the curtain of the creative process of one of our most elusive authors.

... a cool, slim volume that ventures to reveal how Ferrante does it, how she wields the pen like a blade to puncture the flesh of the page.

... wise and vigorous pieces.

... they take slightly differing approaches to the art and mysteries of writing, but could be read as one piece: charting the journey from young wannabe to one of the most gifted, important and powerful authors of her age.

... heartfelt.

Ferrante is a generous guide, taking us through her evolution as a writer and the processes she draws on in each story. She is not shy about sharing the discoveries she made along the way, clawing her way to her own kind of realism. This brief book provides a vivid and concise introduction to effective writing for students and professionals alike, as well as intimate insight into Ferrante’s thinking that will be deeply appreciated by her legions of fans. This book is a true treasure and could provide an important guide for other marginalized writers looking for their own voices..

In the Margins, a collection of four essays on a life of reading and writing, makes clear the complex debt to literature that Ferrante and all writers owe, no matter how distinctive and celebrated they might be. Together the essays offer a fascinating commentary on coming to writing through reading. Importantly, they show how a restless critique of one’s reading and writing can add fuel to the fire.

... an exciting reading experience reminiscent of captivating nonfictional works such as Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium. It confirms that the Italian writer’s global success stems from her ability to combine craftmanship—perhaps developed in that (often disregarded) hotbed of creative writing talents that is literary translation—and formal knowledge of the classics; independent research of noncanonical stories with the unbridled flow of an inspired writing that tends to spill out of the margins..

... despite the performativity of its presentation, and the radical dissimulation of its print embodiment, In the Margins comes across as a painfully honest, even hesitant and reflexive, account of where Ferrante’s personal journey as a writer has taken her..

It’s not unusual to hear readers talk of how Ferrante’s novels have somehow got inside their mind. Despite its insights, I’m not sure this tour of Ferrante’s own mind offers the same rewards. The book feels uneven, tantalising in places, opaque in others. Her ideas can be distilled down into: powerful prose emerges from dutiful prose; all writing is built on the shoulders of great literature; the paradox of realism is it requires truthful lies; and it’s a real bitch to get what’s in your head on to the page. Ferrante can’t help but arouse intrigue and admiration, but I was left wanting more – ideally fiction..

Despite her determination to keep her identity secret, Ferrante drops clues in these essays, implying an author whose cultured background has shaped her writing. If there’s any lingering doubt about Ferrante’s gender, this homage to female talent, impeccably translated by Ann Goldstein, suggests otherwise..

Ferrante offers insights about her complex protagonists, including Lila and Lenu, in her Neapolitan novels, and the first-person narrator of her most recent novel, The Lying Life of Adults, which she conceived as a story'“in which you don’t know who the woman-character writing is'.

Four essays illuminate the mind of Ferrante (The Lying Life of Adults) in this dazzling collection.