A writer’s journey: Ferrante &…Natalia Ginzburg
Thursday 22 May, 6.30pm
Thea Lenarduzzi in conversation with Giulia Caminito
Chaired by Olga Campofreda
Third and last in the series of three events ‘A Writer’s Journey: Ferrante &… ‘ curated by Olga Campofreda for ICI London
In the New York Times list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is the top title. This fact not only confirms the importance of Ferrante’s book but also the impact of a novel that has been loved by readers all over the world. The ‘Ferrante Fever’ – the global success of Ferrante’s riveting four-book series – has been an amazing phenomenon which has managed to secure a renewed interest in female writers and in literary translation, including some classic authors that had been overlooked until then, both in Italy and abroad.
As we mark 10 years since publication of the Neapolitan Quartet was completed, the series ‘A writer’s journey: Ferrante &…’ intends to focus on the female Italian writers that have been acknowledged as important sources of inspiration by Elena Ferrante.
The series of three encounters dedicated respectively to Alba de Céspedes, Elsa Morante and Natalia Ginzburg, will engage each time different Italian and international contemporary female writers, in conversation about a classic book.
Third and last appointment, Thursday 22 May at 6.30pm, Thea Lenarduzzi and Giulia Caminito, chaired by Olga Campofreda, talk about Natalia Ginzburg and in particular about her book The City and the House, published by Daunt Books in May, in the English translation by Dick Davies.
Book your place HERE
Thea Lenarduzzi is a writer, broadcaster and editor. Her debut, Dandelions, a family memoir and cultural history of migration between Italy and England, won the 2020 Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize and was shortlisted for the Ackerley Prize for ‘literary autobiography of outstanding merit’. The Tower revives the forgotten early twentieth-century tale of a young woman locked in a tower, blending fiction, memoir, fairy tale and folklore to explore power and its abuses (forthcoming, autumn 2025). She is working on a biography of Natalia Ginzburg.
Giulia Caminito’s first novel, The Big A, won the Bagutta Opera Prima Prize, the Berto Prize, and the Brancati Giovani Prize. Her book The Bitter Water of the Lake, out soon in English translation by Hope Campbell Gustafson with Indigo Press, won the 2021 Campiello Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 Strega Prize. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages. She lives in Rome.
Olga Campofreda is an Italian writer, researcher and curator. She is the author of Ragazze perbene (NNE, 2023) and Camerette. Un racconto sulla giovinezza dalle pareti delle nostre stanze ai social media (Quanti Einaudi, 2023), while her articles featured on D – la Repubblica delle donne and Domani editoriale. Since 2024 she is the curator of the Miu Miu Literary Club.