Storia della bambina perduta. L’amica geniale. Vol. 4

The Story of the Lost Child is the fourth and final volume of My Brilliant Friend. The two protagonists, Lina (or Lila) and Elena (or Lenù), are now adults, with lives full of events, discoveries, setbacks and ‘rebirths’ behind them. Both have struggled to break free from their neighbourhood of birth, a prison of conformity, violence and ties that are difficult to sever. Elena has become an established writer; she left Naples, got married and then separated, had two daughters, and is now returning to Naples to pursue a childhood love who has reappeared in her new life. Lila has remained in Naples, more entangled in family and Camorra ties, but has carved out a surprising career as an IT entrepreneur and, more than ever, exercises her fascinating and charismatic role as the neighbourhood’s hidden yet very real leader (a role that will, amongst other things, bring her into conflict with the powerful Solara brothers). But the novel is, above all, the story of a friendship, in which the two women – true opposites yet equally powerful – clash and come together, influence one another, drift apart and then reunite, envying and admiring each other. Through new trials that life throws at them, they discover ever-new aspects of their own personalities and of their bond of friendship, both in themselves and in each other. Meanwhile, the history of Italy and the world unfolds in the background, and the two women and their friendship will also have to contend with this…