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Matthew Long's avatar

I haven't read her books yet although they are on my short list for next year. I think the use of a pseudonym is perfectly fine and adds to the mystique. It is a personal choice of the author and is a tool that has been used for centuries for various reasons, artistic or otherwise. More power to her, whoever she might be!

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Tasha Goddard's avatar

I love Elena Ferrante’s work - mostly through the Neapolitan series, but I have read some of her other books, too. I think it’s actually quite wonderful and freeing to be able to read them without having to reference the author’s background. I like being able to enjoy and appreciate art in and of itself and not needing to dig deeper. There is enough deep mess in the words for a lifetime of digging.

I also agree that there would definitely be a tendency to look at whether her life gave her the ‘validity’ to write what she wrote. Could she write about leaving her children if she never had children? Could she only write about abuse and violence if she had experienced it? And so on.

And the power of not having to buy into building a platform, and performing outside of the words she writes? Wonderful! Would that we all had that.

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