by Joan Frank

The elusive yet volcanic Italian author Elena Ferrante has become a kind of insiders' icon on both sides of the Atlantic. Shunning publicity, concealing her real identity, Ferrante will only say (per the New Yorker writer James Wood, who discusses Ferrante brilliantly in its pages), "I study, I translate, I teach."

Electrified by "My Brilliant Friend" - book one of "The Neapolitan Novels" - I devoured all Ferrante's other titles immediately: "The Days of Abandonment," "Troubling Love," "The Lost Daughter" and now book two of the Neapolitan group, "The Story of a New Name." (Each has been limpidly translated by Ann Goldstein, an editor at the New Yorker.)

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Source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/