ABSTRACT
Elena Ferrante is a successful author whose artistic identity is predicated on an absence: we do not know who she is. Her writing is the sole mirror that reflects her being. This unit intends to bring to light some of the reasons for Ferrante’s choice to let her language live autonomously. According to the author, the passion for and dedication to the act of writing is far more important than any spotlight on her personality, which can add little to what is created through words. Learners will read excerpts from a series of interviews from the book La frantumaglia, in which Ferrante engages with the challenging notion of authorship and justifies her anonymity, along with a newspaper article from the book L’invenzione occasionale, in which she offers her outlook on the linguistic factors that shape national identity.
