The Lost Daughter

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante is the novel that first brought Ferrante to the attention of international readers — a taut, unsettling portrait of Leda, a middle-aged academic on holiday alone in southern Italy who becomes obsessed with a young mother and her daughter on the beach. As Leda watches the young family, memories of her own daughters and her choices as a mother surface with increasing force. The novel is a meditation on maternal ambivalence — the love and resentment and guilt that coexist in ways that social convention refuses to acknowledge. Ferrante treats these contradictions with characteristic directness and without judgment, creating a portrait of maternal experience that feels both transgressive and completely true. Published by Europa Editions, The Lost Daughter is essential Ferrante and the basis of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s acclaimed film adaptation.