In the Margins by Elena Ferrante transl. by Ann Goldstein

´(...) I myself, as a girl, wished to avoid as far as possible writing by women: I felt I had different ambitions´.

Relatively late in joining the global ranks of Elena Ferrante readers, I am still in the discovery stage. There are many new approaches and takes that I discover, some of them still trying to decipher. Although reading one author´s books and the critics and other reviews is useful in understanding it, the author´s nonfiction articles and books, eventually about the writing process, are very important as well. 

In the Margins, to be published soon by Europa editions, translated from Italian into English by Ann Goldstein offered for me the needed guidance for a fairer understanding of her readers. The book is relatively short public interventions planned to be held before the pandemic reassigned everything to the virtual realm. The topics featured, many expressed from an intimate personal angle are On the Pleasure of Reading and Writing.

The articles are though more than general guidelines about why we, bookish people - both readers and writing - do love books. Rather, it explains why she is writing, and how she was able to find her voice, as a woman. ´Since I was a girl I´ve loved wriring novels of love and betrayal, dangerous investigations, horrific discoveries, corrupted youth, miserable lives that have a stroke of luck´. But her gender defined the expectations of the readers: mostly, to avoid being too emotional, too woman-oriented, shortly, to be herself. Hence, she took a leap of faith in herself and wrote as a woman. Not necessarily for women only, but gave to women a voice, a woman´s voice.

Entering this mindset takes time to be accepted therefore now I feel sorry for being so harsh with Troubling Love. Indeed, there may have been aspects related to the story that did not appeal to me, but I´ve largely underrated the originality in terms of writing technique. 

But her literary journey was more than the search for a voice. It involved also searching for the words, for that alchemic formula which turns words into emotions and stories. It has to do with the strength of the writer struggling to render a mundane, small object, like her mother´s aquamarine stone, into a very different story layer, each time told differently. ´(...) writing is seizing everything that has already been written and gradually learning to spend that enormous fortune´.

Although I was actually expecting the volume to include many more articles by Ferrante, In the Margins is a good introduction to her books. Now, I can continue my literary explorations of her works with a completely different mindset. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher by the opinions as, as usual, my own