Elena Ferrante to write for Guardian

(ANSA) - London, January 18 - The Italian novelist who writes under the pen name of Elena Ferrante is to write for British daily the Guardian.
    Ferrante will write a weekly column on various topics starting with her first love, the progressive British daily said Thursday.
    The author told the daily she wanted to "put myself to the test" with a regular job and described the experience as "a daring writing exercise".
    Ann Goldstein, translator of all Ferrante's book including the best-selling Neapolitan Quartet, will translate the articles.
    Ferrante's wildly popular Neapolitan novels are set to be turned into a series directed by Italian film director Saverio Costanzo for HBO and Italian broadcaster RAI.
    Shooting runs in Naples from January to June this year for the series based on the four novels: My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child.
    Casting director Laura Muccino has yet to pick the young actors to play the principal roles of Lina and Lenu', characters who have developed a cult international following.
    The series, called The Neapolitan Novels, will tell the tale of the two female protagonists' interwoven stories from their childhood at the end of WWII to the turn of the millennium.
    Costanzo, whose credits include Private, The Solitude of Primary Numbers and Hungry Hearts, has written the screenplay with Neapolitan novelist Francesco Piccolo and writer Laura Paolucci, with the help of Ferrante.
    Ferrante's identity is still an official secret although she was allegedly outed last year as a Roman translator of German feminist fiction, Anita Raja, prompting an international outcry among the novelist's protective fans.
    Raja has previously denied she was the author.
    Costanzo told The New York Times in a telephone interview that he wasn't interested in the author's true identity. "It's her literary reality that counts," he said. "I'm one of those people who don't care who she is." Locations have yet to be chosen but the Campania Film Commission hopes the whole series can be filmed in Naples, apart from parts of the works that are set in Milan, Naples and France.