Elena Ferrante: The Neapolitan Novels / Part One
Sundays, November 4-December 9, 2018 (five sessions; no meeting November 25)
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Guide: Sara Guest, Tuition: $200
The New York Times says, “Elena Ferrante is this rare bird: so deliberate in building up her story that you almost give up on it, so gifted that by the end she has you in tears.” The translation of Ferrante’s four-book Neapolitan Novel series, including the novels My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (2014) and The Story of a Lost Child (2015) comprise some of the most exciting and awaited novels of the 21st century as well as the most enjoyable. This Delve season we are running two seminars (one in fall 2018, one in spring 2019) to consider these four novels, in all their depth and power, against the contemporary fiction landscape and backdrop of other timeless novel series’. Seminars can be taken as stand-alone considerations of each Ferrante novel, or together to consider the full scope of this body of unquestionably strong literature. The fall 2018 seminar will consider the first two novels in the Neapolitan series. (See Spring 2019 for “Part Two”)
Reading List: Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (2012); The Story of a New Name (2013)
SEMINAR GUIDE:
Sara Guest is an editor and poet. Her previous work has included being an editor for Encyclopaedia Britannica, producer for Harpo Studios (Oprah’s Book Club), and program coordinator for Write Around Portland. She is currently the creative manager for Swaim Strategies. Sara has an MA in English from Case Western Reserve University.
