A friend of mine came back from a trip to Italy singing the praises of Elena Ferrante, a pseudonymous author whose true identity is shrouded in mystery. I don’t go in much for literary speculation, so I choose to believe that she’s some kind of demiurge, shaping herself from the collective unconscious of female readers who are stuck reading Gone Girl knockoffs and imposters, searching for the kind of deeper literary exploration of the complexities of womanhood that third-wave feminism seems to have no need…

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