TIME

Coming of age, Italian style

Casting for My Brilliant Friend took place over eight months, with almost 9,000 children (Nasti, left, and del Genio, right) from southern Italy auditioning

THE CENTERPIECE OF MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, the first of pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante’s four beloved Neapolitan novels, is a New Year’s Eve fireworks display. Narrator Elena “Lenù” Greco and her best friend, Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo, are teens ringing in 1959 at a gathering that has reunited feuding clans in a show of neighborhood solidarity. But a rare moment of wonder in this slum at the edge

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