We tend to identify the author with the person who has written the book. It's not like this. The author is the book, is the writing, coinciding with the whole range of techniques, expressive strategies, and linguistic material with which the author addresses the reader. The person who has created the writing is, beyond the writing, so redundant, so fragmented, that often she cannot account for the book other than in an approximate, changeable way, and is not even sure that she will know how to write another. The Story of the Lost Child, by Elena Ferrante. When readers today think they are meeting the author, in reality they're meeting a man or a woman, rich or poor in humanity, but who has already left their role as author. The author – and his capacity to develop the quality of the linguistic material to which he resorts – is present only in the works. Why do you think we are, collectively, so suspicious of art? We tend to look to the author to somehow certify fiction: only if it's autobiographical in nature can we trust it. Is this a lack of imagination? Coleridge coined a phrase that well summarises the heart of every narrative: the suspension of disbelief. Whatever story, whatever genre it belongs to, it must develop techniques that make it appear credible not only to those who read, but also to those who write.

The entire history of literature has at its core the problem of truth. And so it's fairly normal that autobiography is viewed as though it has the greatest guarantee of truth. In fact, it's not like this. If the daughter of a missionary doesn't have the skill to tell a story, if she doesn't know how to charge every word with energy, her story will sound more false than had it been written by a banker. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, by Elena Ferrante. The truth of fiction, in short, is directly proportional to the quality of the writing and it has nothing to do with autobiographical truth, which, at the very most, has the role of raw material, like marble for a statue. The presence of an author and an author's biography can complicate the reader's response and recreate the work. Many ordinary readers view the author as a helpful key to understanding the book. How do you as a reader interact with writers of the books you love? How can the reader prepare to live up to the challenges that the book presents? The Story of a New Name, by Elena Ferrante.

If the book doesn't have within it the answers to all of the reader's questions, it means that the book has either turned out badly or that the reader is posing questions that are beyond the book, as if they were saying (and I see this happening more and more): I haven't read your novel, but all the same I'd like to ask you. Authors – all of them – are considered dead, swept away just like Homer, and, all together ready to rise up again each time a reader reads their pages and interrogates them. The dialogue that is most alive and true is that between the reader and the countless signs consciously or unconsciously arranged in a text. My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante. How do you describe the role or function of the reader? How do we become better readers? What do you see as the responsibilities and rights of the reader? One must establish an intense and enduring relationship with a book. The best reader is one who considers the book a living organism. The best reader is one who performs the score of the text not only abandoning themselves to it but also relishing the responsibility and the right to explore it with all of their sensitivity and all of their imagination.

You firmly correct those who describe your stance as an author as absence. As you say, your books have a writer's name on the cover and they contain a sense of continuity. How do you define your role as a public entity? What can the novelist hope to achieve in the public sphere? Physical absence from the public sphere makes the writing absolutely central. In the writing itself – be it a book or this interview – which one organises and structures, the presence of the author becomes coherent. The rest is uninteresting private life. The Neapolitan Novels can be read on many levels: as a drama, as a political meditation, as a personal history of Italy since World War II, as a story of liberation and the changing lives of women, as a thrilling, painful and revolutionary story of friendship. What responsibilities, if any, did you feel toward certain movements or histories or factual events, or to Naples itself as you wrote these novels? Those who write have a sole task: to find a suitable writing style. The rest is about what one does when something that didn't exist – a text – now, even if in a provisional form, exists and flows naturally along the thread of the writing. By "naturally" I mean authentically; this is the responsibility of a writer. And it's not a given that this will happen; in fact, when it does happen it seems a miracle. The structure of the Neapolitan Novels appears at once simple and complex. We move from within Elena's shifting and ageing consciousness. We know that she's recollecting events, but she's able at once to be her older and younger selves. How did that structure — which seems fluid and organic — come about?

I tried to give Lena's writing a narrative justification. Elena is not resigned, she doesn't write in order to recount the various phases of Lila's and her life from, let's say, a reconciled point of view, with the gaze of someone who, now old, understands how things are. Elena remains profoundly involved and her compulsion to narrate is a fundamental part of the story, almost its summation: she wants to pin Lila down once and for all, she wants to be tied to her definitively. Hers is a final push to take the lead in a complex relationship that for all her life has both subordinated and strengthened her. The act of writing in this way is forced to being performed always in a sort of inchoate present-past, without a tranquil bank from which to observe and organise facts and attribute their meanings. Do you think the kind of friendship described between Elena and Lila is particular to a time and place? Perhaps this kind of intense, long-term connection is less common now that many young people are drawn to big cities and reject the obligations of family and the continuation of life in one's hometown? I don't know. You need to ask younger readers. The books have a huge cast of characters, many tangled and morphing relationships. How did you begin such a long project that would be published serially? Did you consider completing all of the Neapolitan Novels before beginning the process of publication? You originally thought Elena and Lila's story might be complete in one slim novel. Was there a particular moment that changed things and, if so, what was it?

What poured out straight away – and with what immediately seemed the right tone – is a first inchoate draft with areas that are barely sketched and areas a little more refined. For a while it seemed it would be a very long book but one that nonetheless could be published in a single volume. However, when I started to work on giving it a definitive form I understood that I would not only need a lot of time but also the publication of more books. At the start I thought two books, and then three, and in the end the books became four. And each was extremely challenging work. But the four books are to be read as one long story, which in fact existed in the initial draft. Much of what is later revealed is planted in My Brilliant Friend. On what occasions did you have the impulse to go back and revise what you'd already published in order to fit some future change? I'm thinking about a scene that echoes beautifully in book four and which you plant in book one. Early in My Brilliant Friend, the girls confront Don Achille about their lost dolls. In The Story of the Lost Child, that scene is retold from Alfonso's perspective and it takes on a new dimension. When you wrote that scene, did you know how it would resonate in book four? The book, in its first draft, came out without any plan, without preparatory notes of any sort. All I had in mind were a few important crossroads. For example, I always knew that the scene to which you refer would bear fruit in the final book. But much, much more was born out of the process of writing. Is there anything such as a typical day of work for you? What do you consider a successful day of work?

The worst days are those when the more you write, the more every line seems false. The best are those when it seems that every page comes out true and is so pleasurable to write that you don't even realise that you've been working for hours and hours. The latter doesn't happen very often for me. But the years in which I wrote My Brilliant Friend (and this for me is the title of the entire four-book story) were particularly happy. You have discussed how some of your books have embarrassed or frightened you. What reaction do you have to Elena and Lila's story now that you've completed it? I decide to publish a book only when I am convinced that the story that I didn't think could be told – that is, that I struggled to tell, and that made me feel uncomfortable, that frightened me – has been fully told, without short cuts or embellishment. I don't know what happens with readers. Certainly, I do all I consciously can to hold their attention despite the unpleasantness and roughness of the writing. A book lives only if it is read. Your novels provoke extreme reactions in your readers. What do you want your novels to enact in readers? Most of all I love readers who don't want to be consoled. I write in order to recount an experience. My ideal reader is one who is passionate about the tangle of existence and detests simplifications.

Your earlier, shorter novels often feel more brutal, more shocking than the whole of the Neapolitan Novels. Was this a conscious shift, moving from the shorter works to a novel the length of an epic, or does the very long form and the great time span in the novels simply allow for more variations? I don't feel a great difference between my first three books or this last one. Certainly the set up counts: in the past I've written about women in an intolerable moment of crisis, here [in the Neapolitan Novels] the joys and wounds of an entire life are told and it's important how characters react to the alternating currents of good luck or misfortune over a long arc of time. Lila is a builder and destroyer. She proves this over and over. How did these traits of Lila emerge in the writing? What made you want to explore this attractive but fearful personality? I have had friends and acquaintances that are not too dissimilar, unruly and yet at the same time overwhelmed by the struggle of living in opposition to the world. Lila owes much to them. They were uncomfortable women, uncomfortable most of all with themselves. Living in opposition is not easy. One gives in and compromises are necessary, which, however, are humiliating, that cause shame and result in excessive insurgencies in order to redeem themselves. Bodies are tested, and sometimes they give in. Lila always does the opposite of what is expected, of what we assume most people would do. She seems beholden to no one but herself or her idea of what her changing self should be. She wants nothing more than to excise herself. Lila seeks permission from no one, and she seems to feel no one's disapproval. She seems to lead the ultimate experience of freedom. Does this assessment ring true to you?

Yes. I would only like to insist on the suffering of Lila, on her collapses. For me, they are as important as her rebellions. Did you ever write any pages from Lila's perspective? Did you write The Blue Fairy (a text the reader never sees) in order to understand Elena's reaction to it? There were, in the first draft, pages written by Lila in different times. But then it seemed right to me that Lena should remain the sole source of the story. We assume that without Lila, Elena would have developed into a much different person, perhaps never becoming a writer, or certainly not the one she does become. Lila is an unshakeable inner presence for Elena. Is there such a writer who influenced the course of your work? A writer whose vision and truth you try to live up to? Yes, the Italian writer Elsa Morante.

Elena makes Lila her defining authority figure, the person she wants most to impress and live up to. In the almost accidental way, she becomes a feminist and thus shifts her frame of reference. Were you thinking of this when you describe the personal as the political? The personal is political is a phrase that summarises complex discussions. One who writes novels and stories has always known, intuitively, what this is about: in individual events, the most apolitical or impolitic, are always expressed, inevitably, the shortcomings of relationships, oppressive hierarchies and, in some way, the dream of a good life, a society organised according to freedom and justice. From how you've described your writing process, you seem to think long and write fast. What's your process of revision? Aside from, as you've said, throwing out complete stories or novels. It's rare that the first draft is fast. It is when I'm lucky and I immediately find the right tone. On the other hand, the drafts that follow are always slow, full of changes of heart. And it's not a given that one ever arrives at a definitive draft. Often I realise that I was wrong, that the story is false. You have discussed truth as the defining necessity of fiction. Can you explain what this kind of truth entails?

Fiction must express truths that are otherwise unspeakable. And it needs a tone that testifies with every word that invention is entirely unrelated to falsehood. How do you reconcile the finished book with the book that you imagined before you set out? I don't imagine books, I write them. Or rather, imagination and writing for me are not separate moments. Writing is imagination. When the job is done, the collision is not between the project and its realisation, but between what I imagined I would write and what I actually wrote. When it seems to me that there is no connection, I put the book aside. Many readers have discussed with me their shock at the casual physical violence toward women and girls in the Neapolitan Novels. What makes it shocking to readers is that it's not hidden, the women don't actively view themselves as victims, and the society seems to accept it without comment. To me, this moves closer to the truth of real experiences of people in these situations. Is this an example of the truth you seek in writing? We have behind us millennia of mistreatment by men. Sometimes fear, sometimes even love, makes us think of it as an inevitable part of relationships, something that is accepted, taking into account that on the whole things work and that, if he were to leave, things could get even worse. I prefer to explore this female condition rather than other more edifying ones.

In your Vanity Fair interview, you suggest that "literature is made out of tangles", but also that its purpose must be to portray truth. How do you know when you've reached this truth? Do you also experience this as a reader — accepting or rejecting a work of fiction because you find it lacking truth? Yes. Fiction that feeds off fictions annoys me. Writing must unleash authenticity. It's a question of tone, vocabulary, the rhythm of sentences, of licence, of inconsistency. Literary truth is much harder than that of the historian. It's not based on fact-finding, on the research of documents, but on the audacity, recklessness, and effrontery of the person doing the telling. A writer once said to me that she feels possessive of your books to the point that she'd rather men not read them — not because they give away secrets of the female existence but because they are for us and men don't deserve them. Have you experienced this sentiment? And how do you react to it? No. What I write is for whoever has the desire to read. One of the things that makes your work so important to women is that it voices much of what we've felt but feared applied to us alone, for instance your comment that as a young girl you believed good books had to feature men at the centre or as narrators. Do you still have to fight that kind of ingrained impulse?

Yes. Not only did I need to convince myself that women's experiences were as narratively interesting as those of men, but also that women described from a male gaze – at times extraordinary characters – were masks behind which there were complex human beings to depict. Does the woman writer have to try differently, try harder to attract readers? Does it matter if women are read mostly by women? Or do you see shifting patters of reading? I fear a sort of literary gynaeceum. The risk is that we are enclosed in an area, which, although large, is always nevertheless a place where men allow us to play our women's games. Our literature, however, for long a time has not been literature for women, as men describe it. It's literature in its own right that, with its gender difference, definitively erases the false notion of male universalism. Have you heard much from male readers about how your novels have helped them understand the female experience? What has surprised you about male readers' responses? Yes. But generally they didn't speak about understanding, they expressed surprise. Someone wrote to me that he had to stop reading because he felt too guilty.

While there is a long tradition of this, why give your main character (who is a writer) the same first name as your pseudonym? Do you think that the reaction (the desire of many readers to uncover more about your biography or to presume that the Neapolitan Novels describe your own experience) might have been different had you chosen an alternate name? That name helped me believe fully in the story that I was writing, especially its contradictions and inconsistencies. I wanted to be Elena, the author, and Elena, the narrator. In this way I tried to keep all of my experience on the page and I confronted the most risky point, that is when the most intimate, most personal part of the story becomes a springboard for the imagination and at every step can be overwhelmed by invention and lose every truth. Do you worry that a figure from your past might attempt to affix your life in print the way that Lila experiences with Elena? I love figures like Lila: they come into the world precisely to show us that stability, security, certainty, one's own happiness are imagined dreams, while true life engulfs us. What is the impulse to write? Are you writing books that you feel are missing from the bookshelves? Or do you see your books as continuing a tradition? What is your literary bloodline?

One writes because of the love of writing. When one discovers that the entire world can be captured thanks to the combination of 21 signs [Ferrante is referring here to the 21 letters in the Italian alphabet], you are overcome by the eagerness to know how to perform that magic well and you focus yourself on the boundless deposit of literary tradition in order to learn. That which we call the author is always an expression of a long and complex tradition, of an apprenticeship without which an individual, [with] no matter how much talent, would not even be able to stutter in writing. The struggle of women has been to learn from the male tradition while laying the foundations for one's own genealogy. Today it's already easier, but in the past it was really hard and each female experience of writing can be considered a fragment of a mosaic that seemed impossible to conceive. Did you ever consider using a male pseudonym in the tradition of George Eliot or the Brontes to avoid the questions you now face about your gender, or to distance further from your identity? With all of feminism's advancements, women writers still receive less critical attention than male writers. Or did you feel you owed it to your sex to take credit for this work? The time to transform ourselves into men is over. Women, in the last century, have come a long way, they know how to write like men and in not [a] few cases better than men. The problem is that very few writers are willing to admit some debt to the writing of women. As far as men go, then, reading a novel written by a woman – even a well-regarded woman – seems a threat to their virility. Without prejudice to the exceptions, of course. Your pseudonymity protects your private life, but this act also feels like one of great courage. Most publishers would not allow this protection of the private self. If your publisher had been less respectful of your decision, would you have declined to publish? And would you have continued writing without an audience?

Absolutely yes. If I decide to publish, I want the book to have within it all that is necessary to earn readers. But writing – the pure and simple joy of writing – doesn't need a public, it's my own space of freedom. Has your pseudonymity protected your private life as you'd hoped? I don't protect my private life. I protect my writing, I protect it from the same urgency to publish. What can you tell English-speaking readers about your novel The Beach at Night, which was published in 2007 in Italian and which I understand will be the next English translation of your work? It appears to have some connection to The Lost Daughter. It's a fairy tale. Originally it was a few pages that were part of The Lost Daughter. And then I decided to publish them separately.

After the intensity of writing the Neapolitan Novels, are you preparing to write something else? Do you, as a writer, need to rest, change focus and somehow refuel after completing a novel (or series of novels)? A: I can't live without writing, and so I am writing. But nothing publishable. The Neapolitan Novels are published by Text.