The writer known as Elena Ferrante has taken pains to hide her identity in the hope that listeners would focus on her body of work. But in this volume, she invites us into her workshop and offers a glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk — those drawers from which emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of the Neapolitan Novels, the New York Times best-selling “enduring masterpiece” (The Atlantic).

Consisting of over 20 years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, Frantumaglia is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. Ferrante answers many of her listeners’ questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives. She discusses her thoughts and concerns as her novels are being adapted into films. She talks about the challenge of finding concise answers to interview questions. She explains the joys and the struggles of writing, the anguish of composing a story only to discover that that story isn’t good enough. She contemplates her relationship with psychoanalysis, with the cities she has lived in, with motherhood, with feminism, and with her childhood as a storehouse for memories, impressions, and fantasies. The result is a vibrant and intimate self-portrait of a writer at work.