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Fake Ferrante Twitter account sparks fresh confusion over author’s identity

A Twitter account claiming to belong to Anita Raja on Tuesday night "confirmed" media reports that the translator was behind the successful Elena Ferrante novels, sending Italian media into a frenzy. But by Wednesday morning, it seemed that the account was a fake.

Published: 5 October 2016 10:19 CEST
Fake Ferrante Twitter account sparks fresh confusion over author's identity
Who is behind the Twitter account? File photo: Damien Meyer/AFP

The account, was created on Tuesday evening, with a tweet saying it would only stay open temporarily to allow for an “explanation”.

It used the handle @AnitaRajaStarn – 'Starn' being an abbreviation for the surname of Raja's husband, writer Domenico Starnone – and followed 48 accounts of journalists and news organizations (including The Local Italy).

“I confirm it. I'm Elena Ferrante. But this doesn't change anything regarding readers' relationships with Ferrante's books,” the account posted, at one minute to midnight on Tuesday evening.

It went on to say that the way Ferrante's identity had been 'revealed' had been “gross and dangerous”, and said that Raja would not give any interviews regarding the novels. “They are and remain Elena's, not mine”.

Italian news agency Ansa reported the tweets as genuine on Wednesday morning, leading the story to be picked up by leading Italian dailies including Rai News, La Stampa, La Repubblica, and Il Mattino.

However, on Wednesday morning both Il Post and La Repubblica cited Ferrante's publishing house, E/O, as saying the profile was a fake.

At 10:30, the profile posted again, saying “I opened this profile of my own accord, without consulting my editor”.

The account was suspended late on Wednesday morning.

Privacy row

Ferrante's best-selling novels, particularly her Naples-based quartet, have been acclaimed for their intricate, compelling storytelling and insights into the nature of female friendship.

Her success has been fuelled by media interest in the mystery over the author's identity with the until-now anonymous Ferrante having granted only a handful of interviews conducted via emails passed on by her publisher.

But earlier this week, Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti claimed to have proof that Raja was behind the Neapolitan novels. His research was based on records of payments made by Ferrante's publishers, for whom Raja also worked, which appear to correspond to the royalties the best-selling novelist would have been due.

Gatti's 'scoop' prompted fierce debate in the literary world regarding an author's right to anonymity.

While Ferrante's publishing house defended the author and criticizing “disgusting journalism that breaches privacy”, Gatti said millions of readers had “acquired the right” to know the author's identity.

Academics and authors weighed in, the majority defending Ferrante and her choice not to reveal her name.

Novelist Matt Haig added: “Thhe pursuit to discover the 'real' Elena Ferrante is a disgrace and also pointless,” he tweeted. “A writer's truest self is the books they write.”

READ ALSO: Take a literary tour of Italy with these brilliant novels

 

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HISTORY

‘Lost’ manuscript of pro-Nazi French author published 78 years later

A book by one of France's most celebrated and controversial literary figures arrives in bookstores this week, 78 years after the manuscript disappeared

Published: 4 May 2022 11:42 CEST
'Lost' manuscript of pro-Nazi French author published 78 years later

It is a rare thing when the story of a book’s publication is even more mysterious than the plot of the novel itself.

But that might be said of Guerre (War) by one of France’s most celebrated and controversial literary figures, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, which arrives in bookstores on Thursday, some 78 years after its manuscript disappeared.

Celine’s reputation has somehow survived the fact that he was one of France’s most eager collaborators with the Nazis.

Already a superstar thanks to his debut novel Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Celine became one of the most ardent anti-Semitic propagandists even before France’s occupation.

In June 1944, with the Allies advancing on Paris, the writer abandoned a pile of his manuscripts in his Montmartre apartment.

Celine feared rough treatment from authorities in liberated France, having spent the war carousing with the Gestapo, and giving up Jews and foreigners to the Nazi regime and publishing racist pamphlets about Jewish world conspiracies.

For decades, no one knew what happened to his papers, and he accused resistance fighters of burning them. But at some point in the 2000s, they ended up with retired journalist Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, who passed them – completely out of the blue – to Celine’s heirs last summer.

‘A miracle’
Despite the author’s history, reviews of the 150-page novel, published by Gallimard, have been unanimous in their praise.

“The end of a mystery, the discovery of a great text,” writes Le Point; a “miracle,” says Le Monde; “breathtaking,” gushes Journal du Dimanche.

Gallimard has yet to say whether the novel will be translated.

Like much of Celine’s work, Guerre is deeply autobiographical, recounting his experiences during World War I.

It opens with 20-year-old Brigadier Ferdinand finding himself miraculously alive after waking up on a Belgian battlefield, follows his treatment and hasty departure for England – all based on Celine’s real experiences.

His time across the Channel is the subject of another newly discovered novel, Londres (London), to be published this autumn.

If French reviewers seem reluctant to focus on Celine’s rampant World War II anti-Semitism, it is partly because his early writings (Guerre is thought to date from 1934) show little sign of it.

Journey to the End of the Night was a hit among progressives for its anti-war message, as well as a raw, slang-filled style that stuck two fingers up at bourgeois sensibilities.

Celine’s attitude to the Jews only revealed itself in 1937 with the publication of a pamphlet, Trifles for a Massacre, which set him on a new path of racial hatred and conspiracy-mongering.

He never back-tracked. After the war, he launched a campaign of Holocaust-denial and sought to muddy the waters around his own war-time exploits – allowing him to worm his way back into France without repercussions.

‘Divine surprise’
Many in the French literary scene seem keen to separate early and late Celine.

“These manuscripts come at the right time – they are a divine surprise – for Celine to become a writer again: the one who matters, from 1932 to 1936,” literary historian Philippe Roussin told AFP.

Other critics say the early Celine was just hiding his true feelings.

They highlight a quote that may explain the gap between his progressive novels and reactionary feelings: “Knowing what the reader wants, following fashions like a shopgirl, is the job of any writer who is very financially constrained,” Celine wrote to a friend.

Despite his descent into Nazism, he was one of the great chroniclers of the trauma of World War I and the malaise of the inter-war years.

An exhibition about the discovery of the manuscripts opens on Thursday at the Gallimard Gallery and includes the original, hand-written sheets of Guerre.

They end with a line that is typical of Celine: “I caught the war in my head. It is locked in my head.”

In the final years before his death in 1961, Celine endlessly bemoaned the loss of his manuscripts.

The exhibition has a quote from him on the wall: “They burned them, almost three manuscripts, the pest-purging vigilantes!”

This was one occasion – not the only one – where he was proved wrong.

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