--- title: Elena Ferrante’s New Novel: Everything We Know So Far description: Italian writer Elena Ferrante has a new novel 'The Lying Life of Adults' out in June. Here’s what we know about the plot so far. canonical: https://time.com/5699582/elena-ferrante-new-novel/ author: Ciara Nugent article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-14T16:26:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T21:10:55.000Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Everything We Know So Far About Elena Ferrante's New Novel 'The Lying Life of Adults' og:description: It's out in Italian on Nov. 7, but English speakers will have to wait till June og:url: https://time.com/5699582/elena-ferrante-new-novel/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26ab123c93b6ffc2/698a043d09208fad13415aec/gettyimages-887019158.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Elena-Ferrante-novels-book-fair og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Everything We Know So Far About Elena Ferrante's New Novel 'The Lying Life of Adults' twitter:description: It's out in Italian on Nov. 7, but English speakers will have to wait till June twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26ab123c93b6ffc2/698a043d09208fad13415aec/gettyimages-887019158.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's Everything We Know So Far About Elena Ferrante's New Novel, _The Lying Life of Adults_  by [Ciara Nugent](https://time.com/author/ciara-nugent/)  ## Ciara Nugent Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:10 PM UTCPublished: Oct 14, 2019 4:26 PM UTC  L'amica Geniale, the book by Elena Ferrante at Piu Libri Piu Liberi Publishing Fair at the Convention Center La Nuvola, on December 6, 2017 in Rome, Italy. L'amica Geniale, the book by Elena Ferrante at Piu Libri Piu Liberi Publishing Fair at the Convention Center La Nuvola, on December 6, 2017 in Rome, Italy.Simona Granati—Corbis/Getty Images  by [Ciara Nugent](https://time.com/author/ciara-nugent/)  ## Ciara Nugent Updated: Dec 12, 2023 9:10 PM UTCPublished: Oct 14, 2019 4:26 PM UTC Mysterious Italian author[ Elena Ferrante](https://time.com/4299844/elena-ferrante-2016-time-100/) will soon release a new novel — her first since 2014, when she published the last instalment of the four [Neapolitan novels ](https://time.com/4010504/neapolitan-novels-history/)that made her a global literary star. That quartet, which followed two girls growing up in a [poor neighbourhood of Naples during the 20th century](https://time.com/5435772/elena-ferrante-hbo-mafia-camorra/), was praised by critics for its striking insights into female friendship and for its artful weaving of personal stories with national political histories. The books won a devoted following, selling [some 2 million copies in North America](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/arts/ferrante-fever-continues-to-spread.html) alone and helping to [spark a vogue for translated fiction](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/ferrante-knausgaard-translation-rise/575482/) in [English-speaking](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/06/translated-fiction-enjoys-sales-boom-as-uk-readers-flock-to-european-authors) countries. In the run-up to the novel’s Italian release, publishers for Ferrante – who keeps her real identity secret by using a pseudonym – have been slowly releasing details about its title, plot and English language release date. Here’s what we know so far about Ferrante’s new novel. ## **When is Elena Ferrante’s new book coming out?** Ferrante’s Italian publishers announced the new book in September, [giving it a Nov. 7 release date](https://twitter.com/EdizioniEO/status/1170970543841054720) for the Italian edition — though Anglophone audiences will have to wait a bit longer. ## **When will the book be available in the U.S.**? The English-language version of Ferrante’s new novel will be released in the U.S. in hardback on June 9 next year – seven months after its Italian release. _The Lying Life of Adults_ will be translated by Ann Goldstein, a _New Yorker_ editor who has [worked on translations of Ferrante’s work](https://www.wsj.com/articles/ann-goldstein-a-star-italian-translator-1453310727) since 2004. ## What is the book called? Ferrante’s new novel is titled _The Lying Life of Adults_, according to her U.S. publisher Europa Editions. That’s a literal translation of the Italian title: _La vita bugiarda degli adulti._ ## **What do we know about the plot of the book?** Ahead of its Italian release, Europa shared a description of the novel’s plot on Nov. 6\. Across 336 pages, it will tell the story of a young woman named Giovanna growing up in Naples, and her struggle to come to terms with the end of her childhood. “Giovanna’s pretty face has changed: it’s turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent,” the description reads. “But is that really what’s happening? What mirror does she have to look in to find herself and save herself?” The book will also explore tensions within Naples, the setting of Ferrante’s famed series. “Giovanna searches for a new face in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, which professes to be a place of excess and vulgarity.” Europa has also posted the novel’s opening passage on Twitter. > [](https://twitter.com/EuropaEditions/status/1171098632042536965) The excerpt shares similar themes to the rest of Ferrante’s work, focusing on fraught family relationships and the difficulty of communicating one’s own story. ## Who is Elena Ferrante? We still don’t know for sure. Ferrante adopted her pseudonym before publishing her 1992 debut novel _L’amore molesto_ (_Troubling Love_). She used it for several more works — all focusing on complex female protagonists — before starting the Neapolitan quartet in 2011 with _L’amica geniale_ (_My Brilliant Friend)_. Though some of Ferrante’s [back catalog has been newly translated into English](https://time.com/4270346/elena-ferrante-brings-dark-charm-to-young-readers/) since the series ended in 2014, the new novel will be Ferrante’s first in five years. Ferrante doesn’t do book tours and gives all her interviews [via email](https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-elena-ferrante-interview-20180517-htmlstory.html). She says the absence of her identity is key to her creative vision. “I wanted to detach myself from the finished story. I wanted the books to assert themselves without my patronage,” she told [The New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/books/writing-has-always-been-a-great-struggle-for-me.html) in 2014. In 2016, Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti controversially claimed to have discovered Ferrante’s real identity, having looked through financial records[ to unmask her as a Rome-based retired librarian and translator,](https://time.com/4516310/elena-ferrantes-identity/) originally from Germany and married to a prominent Italian writer. Fans, fellow authors and the literary world condemned the attempted unmasking as a breach of privacy. “We just think that this kind of journalism is disgusting,” her publisher [told _The Guardian._](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/02/elena-ferrante-literary-storm-as-italian-reporter-identifies-author) Ferrante [did not comment](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/elena-ferrante-pseudonym/573952/) on Gatti’s claim. After the unmasking scandal, some expressed fear that Ferrante might never return to the literary world. But her publishers announced [a year later](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/29/elena-ferrante-writing-again-publisher-says-neopolitan-series-novel) that she was writing again. ## Is Elena Ferrante releasing anything else soon? There’s plenty going on in the Ferrante universe to keep fans interested ahead of the new novel’s release. On November 19, Europa will publish [_Incidental Inventions_](https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609455583/incidental-inventions), a collection of the short essays Ferrante wrote as columns for Guardian [for a year until January 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/12/elena-ferrante-this-is-my-last-column-after-a-year-that-has-scared-and-inspired-me). HBO released the first image from the second season of its adaptation of the Neapolitan novels in July. The first miniseries [debuted](https://time.com/5448800/my-brilliant-friend-review/) last year and is co-produced with Italian production company RAI Fiction. Italian media report that[ filming for the second season,](https://www.pisatoday.it/cronaca/termine-riprese-amica-geniale-pisa.html) is over and that a [fragment of a trailer](https://grandenapoli.it/lamica-geniale-2-le-prime-indiscrezioni-sulla-messa-in-onda/) is already circulating on social media. > [](https://twitter.com/BrilliantFriend/status/1148607745618145280) In October 2018 Ferrante confirmed that actor Maggie Gyllenhaal is adapting another of the author’s novel, _The Lost Daughter,_ into a film — Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut. Ferrante has said she doesn’t mind if Gyllenhaal, as a female director, strays from her vision in the novel. “In the great warehouse of the arts, set up mainly by men, women have for a relatively short time been seeking the means and opportunities to give a form of their own to what they have learned from life,” she wrote in an essay for [_The Guardian._](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/06/maggie-gyllenhaal-elena-ferrante-film-book) “So I don’t want to say: you have to stay inside the cage that I constructed.” _Correction, October 16: The original version of this story misstated the title of the Elena Ferrante novel that actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is adapting for her directorial debut. 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