[Photo provided to China Daily]

The Story of the Lost Child

One of the biggest global best-sellers of the last couple of years, the final work in Italian writer Elena Ferrante's Naples quartet recently saw its Chinese translation released. As the title suggests, the book promises a heartrending read as the two leading female characters Lila and Lenu－or Raffaella Cerullo and Elena Greco－enter the third decade of their lives, and face the tumultuous experiences of Lenu's failed affair and the disappearance of Lila's daughter.

The main themes from the first three books consistently thread through this final piece of the jigsaw: feminism, female friendship, writing－and the epic backdrop of Naples.

The strong bonds of their friendship combined with their mutually competitive, and sometimes jealous, relationship help to fuel the two women's desire to avoid the same fate as the poor women trying to survive on the male-dominated streets of Naples－Lenu through her writing, and Lila by controlling the most powerful men in the neighborhood.

The last book also solves the mystery behind Lila's disappearance that takes place at the start of the first book, My Brilliant Friend.

Afraid to lose Lila completely as her boundary begins to dissolve as she claims, Lenu tries to give Lila a form by writing a "quartet" of books about their lives together. It's a compelling page-turner, which, although ends quite abruptly, keeps you thinking about the duo in the days that follow.