An Email Conversation With Elena Ferrante

“The idea that every ‘I’ is largely made up of others and by the others wasn’t theoretical [in Naples]; it was a reality. To be alive meant to collide continually with the existence of others and to be collided with … The dead were brought into quarrels; people weren’t content to attack and insult the living – they naturally abused aunts, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents who were no longer in the world.”