Una joya de la literatura contempor nea que ya ha fascinado a m s de medio mill n de lectores en Italia y Estados Unidos. Primer libro de la serie 'Dos Amigas

UNA SAGA MEMORABLE Con La amiga estupenda, Elena Ferrante inaugura una tetralogia deslumbrante que tiene como tel n de fondo la ciudad de N poles a mediados del siglo pasado y como protagonistas a Len y Lila, dos j venes mujeres que est n aprendiendo a gobernar su vida en un entorno donde la astucia, antes que la inteligencia, es el ingrediente de todas las salsas. La relaci n a menudo tempestuosa entre Lila y Len viene acompa ada de un coro de voces que dan cuerpo a su historia y nos muestran la realidad de un barrio pobre, habitado por gente humilde que acata sin rechistar la ley del m s fuerte, pero La amiga estupenda est lejos del realismo social: lo que aqu tenemos son unos personajes de carne y hueso, que nos intrigan y nos deslumbran por la fuerza y la urgencia de sus emociones. Por primera vez Ferrante aborda una narraci n muy amplia, poniendo en escena un verdadero tableau vivant donde no hay espacio para el t pico: todo es vida y todo respira al hilo de la mejor literatura. «El reto para quien escribe es llenar la distancia entre lo que vives y lo que cuentas, sentir f sicamente el impacto de la narraci n... .-Elena Ferrante ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Book one in the New York Times bestselling Neapolitan quartet about two friends growing up in post-war Italy is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted family epic by Italy's most beloved and acclaimed writer, Elena Ferrante, "one of the great novelists of our time." (Roxana Robinson, The New York Times) Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Ferrante's four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its protagonists, the fiery and unforgettable Lila, and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflictual friendship. Book one in the series follows Lila and Elena from their first fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists. "An intoxicatingly furious portrait of enmeshed friends," writes Entertainment Weekly. "Spectacular," says Maureen Corrigan on NPR's Fresh Air. "A large, captivating, amiably peopled bildungsroman," writes James Wood in The New Yorker Ferrante is one of the world's great storytellers. With My Brilliant Friend she has given her readers an abundant, generous, and masterfully plotted page-turner that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight readers for many generations to come.