Incidental Inventions

Elena Ferrante is the best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, now an HBO original series. Collected here for the first time are the seeds of future novels, the timely reflections of this internationally beloved storyteller, the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called “one of the great novelists of our time” (New York Times).

“This is my last column, after a year that has scared and inspired me . . . I have written as an author of novels, taking on matters that are importa...