Fans of the mysterious and pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante were intrigued on Tuesday morning when a Twitter user claiming to be her tweeted first in Italian, “Eccomi su Twitter. Elena,” then in English, “I’m on Twitter. Elena.”
Sorry, everyone—non è Elena. “Definitely not legit,” Rachael Small, a senior publicist for Ferrante’s English-language publisher Europa Editions, confirmed to TIME. (The tell might be in a misspelling of Ferrante’s much documented Naples: the impostor account says ‘Neaples.’)
Ferrante has maintained strict privacy since rising to international literary fame with her Neapolitan Novels, participating in interviews only in writing—a position she’s upheld since publishing her first novel, Troubling Love (1992). Before it was released, she wrote a letter to her publisher explaining she had no intention of doing anything to promote the book: “I’ve already done enough for this long story: I wrote it … I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers.”
So, Twitter promotion was always an unlikely medium for the author of My Brilliant Friend. Readers eager for more Ferrante can instead look forward to her next two books to get English translations: The nonfiction collection Frantumaglia, coming in November, and the children’s book The Beach at Night, coming in December.
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