Appropriation (October)

The only thing some of us know about Elena Ferrante is that she’s a pseudonym. Now this October one Claudio Gatti says, with steely certainty, that one Elena Ferrante is one Anita Raja. It’s a Charles Lutwidge Dodgson moment. Ferrante readers have reacted with the fervour of Calvino characters, as real identities vie with the names they use and the characters they project through their art. ‘Cultural appropriation’ is used against Ferrante, as though writing about people who live in Naples is a sin. If that were so, we’d have no novels. That she will never write again. Comedy gold.