Ferrante fever

High-profile fans include Oprah, Alice Sebold, Richard Flanagan, Zadie Smith, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeffrey Archer.

The books have been translated into 42 languages.

Italian TV company Wildside has started production on a 32episode series of the books.

A new Ferrante book is scheduled for December, a scary children’s book titled ‘The Beach At Night’. The story is told from the perspective of an abandoned doll.

The series has boosted tourism to Naples, once a city to be avoided. The New York Times even ran an article directing visitors to sites from the novels, including bookstores and pastry shops.

The latest — and some say the most plausible — guess as to Ferrante’s identity is that she is Marcello Marmo, a professor of contemporary history at Naples University. She has denied it.