A BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES

From the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, this novel of a deserted wife’s descent into despair—and rage—is “a masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used to: keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even refrain from assaulting him physically.

In a “raging, torrential voice” (The New York Times), Olga conveys her journey from denial to devastating emptiness—and when she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.

“Intelligent and darkly comic.”—Publishers Weekly

“Remarkable, lucid, austerely honest.”—The New Yorker

Elena Ferrante
Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), now a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Jessie Buckley. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini; Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa, 2016); and a children’s picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016). The four volumes known as the “Neapolitan novels” (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. The adaptation of Ferrante’s most recent novel, The Lying Life of Adults (Europa, 2020), debuted on Netflix in 2023.

• Feb 9 2017
  Likely Stories: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
  — KWBU
• Dec 20 2016
  Best Books of 2016
  — Brazos Bookstore
• Jul 25 2015
  The Sunday Morning Herald: "It is possible that the few flaws, the moments of excessive melodrama or one instance of improbable sentimentality that I have discovered in these three short novels are no more than chimeras glimpsed by a male sensibility."
  
• Jul 9 2015
  The Literary Hub: “Ferrante’s writing is as fierce as it is elegant, as razor sharp as it is oddly soothing. This is a book you will read in an afternoon but will stay with you for a lifetime.”
  
• Jun 30 2015
  Tweed Magazine: “Rage is a word frequently used to describe Ferranate’s voice, but a more appropriate term is power. Her writing is powerful. She’s powerful.”
  
• Jun 23 2015
  Vol 1 Brooklyn: My Father’s Suicide and “The Days of Abandonment”