Her Side of the Story: The feverish novel Elena Ferrante keeps by her bed

You might not have heard about the late Italian author Alba de Cespedes had it not been for Elena Ferrante, who is such a fan of this feverish 1949 novel, newly translated into English, that she keeps a copy by her bed. Loosely autobiographical, Her Side of the Story tells the tale of lonely, disaffected, pathologically romantic Alessandra, who grows up acutely aware of the suffocating existence of wives and mothers in pre-war Rome and marries a communist sympathiser. The marriage brings yet more isolation, even as Alessandra joins the anti-fascist resistance. The influence on Ferrante is clear – both novelists shine a light on the seething interiority of female adolescence in rigidly patriarchal Italy. One of them, though, was way ahead of her time.

Also out… a lost novel by the 100 Years of Solitude novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, written in his final years and apparently published against his wishes. While Until August, about a woman whose yearly pilgrimage to her mother’s island grave becomes an annual occasion of random sexual conquest, contains moments of lyrical insight, it’s too slight to rank along his greatest work.