By Ila Ananya
There’s going to be an Elena Ferrante TV show. Really.
That’s literally the only sentence that’s been playing in my head since my friend told me that HBO is going to be broadcasting a new drama series on Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. It’s the first book in Ferrante’s wildly popular and completely consuming Neapolitan series that traces the friendship of Lila and Elena, two girls growing up in Naples.
Apparently each of the four books in the series are going to get eight episodes each, although what’s on board for now is only My Brilliant Friend. It’s going to be directed by Saverio Constanzo, who also told Variety that he thought the Neapolitan series was “very literary but also very cinematographic”, and that he’d be sticking to the book’s storyline as close as possible. Some have reported that Constanzo will be co-writing the series with the author, along with two others.
Everyone has opinions about Ferrante. I know people who are intent on convincing me that Ferrante is actually a man (HAHAHA). Others, like Claudio Gatti, who wrote a disgusting piece for the New York Review of Books that doxed two authors in his desire to reveal Ferrante’s identity, is at another level altogether.
So right now, while I’m unbelievably excited about the show, I’m also terrified.
I’ll not go as far as saying it’s the TV show I’ve been waiting for. The books have done things for me and my writing (apart from making me believe I can read long books from start to finish again), and I’m scared what this show will do. I’ve wanted to visit Naples since I read these books. But I can’t imagine the faces of actors (by the way the actors are going to be Neapolitan actors and the show will be in Italian) being put to these women whose lives Ferrante has opened so closely.