When Claudio Gatti published an investigation into Elena Ferrante's identity, a few years ago, he raised an outcry both in Italy and abroad. He had pried into the author's privacy, violated her right to remain anonymous. It was unfair, it was irrelevant, we didn't want to know.
Didn't we? Yes and no. There was one conclusion that mattered in Gatti's article: the person writing Ferrante's novels was the translator Anita Raja, a woman.
That was a relief. If you haven't experienced firsthand how sexist Italian academics and journalists can be, it might be difficult to imagine how important Ferrante's gender has been for all of us studying her work over the years. Before My Brilliant Friend was even published, there were rumors that Ferrante's work had been authored by a man, and they intensified after the success of the Neapolitan Novels in the United States.
