My amazing friend

From where I stand, misery seems eternal, nothing and no one can change that. The city of Naples in the 1950s. Two friends, Elena and Lila, live in a poor working-class neighborhood. They grow up and change, help each other and quarrel, their paths meet and diverge. This is the summary of "My Amazing Friend," which is the first part of the Naples Quartet by Italian author Elena Ferrante. The novel was published with a translation by Muawiya Abdul Majid by Dar Al-Adab, as part of distinguished translated books and novels including the rest of the quartet and other translations by Ferrante. About "My Amazing Friend" Ferrante, in this quartet, traces the phases of the lives of two clever girls — Elena Greco, the kind, conscious girl, book lover, and her friend Lila, the fiery and reckless — from childhood to adulthood, as they try to find two lives for themselves amidst the violent and dismissive culture prevailing in the neighborhood where they live on the outskirts of Naples in Italy. The intertwined lives of the girls present an indelible and vivid picture of Naples, and an essential understanding of women's daily lives and their relentless pursuit to outwit men's claims, household work, and artistic aspirations. The book, through a detailed exploration of the friendship that unites them, accurately depicts how they struggled to escape the neighborhood where they grew up, which was a prison of blind obedience, violence, and taboos that could not be violated at all. They said about "My Amazing Friend" and Elena Ferrante: A remarkable journey into the inner worlds of the heroines, led by Ferrante. Her insight is sharp, her narration compelling, her description of our daily lives renewed — lives that need to be narrated to us by a woman in this exquisite way. The New York Times Book Review Perhaps the best writer modern fiction has known. Her literature is as transparent as crystal, her stories primal and deep at the same time. The Economist She, above all, is skilled in crafting plots and intrigues. The Independent No one has written about Italy, its feelings, its neighborhoods, its flavors, and its intense emotions like Ferrante. Il Manifesto A masterpiece in every sense of the word... I read all her books immersed in their magic; I fell under their spell. I only wanted to follow Lila and Elena’s lives to the end. Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize Winner)