Published in Italy in 1991, Elena Ferrante’s novel Troubling Love caused a literary sensation and earned its author the Elsa Morante prize—one of Italy’s most prestigious awards for literature. Thanks to translator Ann Goldstein, the book now affords us English-speakers the guilty pleasure of delving into dark and forbidden places—the insides of the mother-daughter body, the ins and outs of the mother-daughter relationship. In Troubling Love, Ferrante cuts open and examines the female psyche and body against the backdrop of gritty, unforgiving Naples.
