Part of the bestselling saga about childhood friends following different paths by "one of the great novelists of our time" (The New York Times).
In the third book in the New York Times-bestselling Neapolitan quartet that inspired the HBO series My Brilliant Friend, Elena and Lila have grown into womanhood. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her husband and the comforts her marriage brought and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women are pushing against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance, and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up for women during the 1970s. And yet, they are still very much bound to each other in a book that "shows off Ferrante's strong storytelling ability and will leave readers eager for the final volume of the series" (Library Journal).
"One of modern fiction's richest portraits of a friendship." -NPR
OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE
"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before."-The Guardian
"This is high stakes, subversive literature."-The Daily Telegraph
"With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and the world."-The Sunday Times
"An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled."-Jhumpa Lahiri
"An extraordinary epic."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory."-The Times
"Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep."-London Review of Books
"Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship."-The Times Literary Supplement
Set in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of the feisty and rebellious Lila and her lifelong friend, the brilliant and bookish Elena. Lila, after separating from her husband, is living with her young son in a new neighbourhood of Naples and working at a local factory. Elena has left Naples, earned a degree from an elite college, and published a novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned and fascinating interlocutors. The era, with its dramatic changes in sexual politics and social costumes, with its seemingly limitless number of new possibilities, is rendered with breathtaking vigour. This third Neapolitan Novel is not only a moving story of friendship but also a searing portrait of a rapidly changing world.
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