Elena Ferrante as World Literature [Hardcover]

A model of academic praxis. -Public Books

Elena Ferrante as World Literatureis the first English-language monograph on Italian writer Elena Ferrante, whose four Neapolitan Novels (2011-2014) became a global phenomenon. The book proposes that Ferrante constructs a theory of feminine experience which serves as the scaffolding for her own literary practice. Drawing on the writer's entire textual corpus to date, Stiliana Milkova examines the linguistic, psychical, and corporeal-spatial realities that constitute the female subjects Ferrante has theorized. At stake in Ferrante's theory/practice is the articulation of a feminine subjectivity that emerges from the structures of patriarchal oppression and that resists, bypasses, or subverts these very structures.

Milkova's inquiry proceeds from Ferrante's theory offrantumagliaandsmarginaturato explore mechanisms for controlling and containing the female body and mind, forms of female authorship and creativity, and corporeal negotiations of urban topography and patriarchal space.Elena Ferrante as World Literaturesets forth an interdisciplinary framework for understanding Ferrante's texts and offers an account of her literary and cultural significance today.

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. EuropeNow

Written with remarkable competence and flair, and accompanied by a rich bibliography,ElenaFerrante as World Literatureconstitutes an essential reference for Ferrante scholars and an lƒ)