People in Naples have a spectacularly blasé attitude towards Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series. Known as the Neapolitan Chronicles to the rest of the world, the four books recount the decades long friendship of two young Neapolitan women as their town recovers from war, grapples with the camorra, suffers municipal neglect, political strife, earthquakes, decadence and kidnappings.  

Many Neapolitan intellectuals bristle at the book’s portrayal of Naples in the post-war years- violently austere and plagued by organized crime, unapologetic misogyny and petty banditry. All of those elements were part of Naples but no more or less than many other European cities at that time.