‘This is my last column, after a year that has scared and inspired me.’ With these words, Elena Ferrante, the bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, bid farewell to her year-long collaboration with the Guardian. For a full year she penned short pieces, the subjects of which were suggested by editors at the Guardian, turning the writing process into a kind of prolonged interlocution; the subjects ranged from first love to climate change, from enmity among women to the adaptation of her novels to film and TV.

As she said in her final column: ‘I have written as an author of novels, taking on matters that are important to me and that — if I have the will and the time — I’d like to develop within real narrative mechanisms.’ Here, then, are the seeds of possible future novels, the ruminations of an internationally beloved author, and the abiding preoccupations of a writer who has been called ‘one of the great novelists of our time’ (the New York Times).

Gathered here in a beautiful gift edition and accompanied by a new, original introduction by the author and Andrea Ucini’s intelligent, witty, and beautiful illustrations, this is a must for all Ferrante fans.