Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

Elena Ferrante is the author of several novels. There is nothing mysterious about her, given how she manifests herself - perhaps even too much - in her own writing, the place where her creative life transpires in absolute fullness.

Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others.

I didn't choose anonymity.Instead, I chose absence.

I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.

Anonymity lets me concentrate exclusively on writing.

The fictional treatment of biographical material - a treatment that for me is essential - is full of traps.