The coming of age genre has long been a male-dominated tradition (Lazzaro-Weiss 1990), but—as a consequence of the great success of Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend tetralogy (2011-2014)—topics such girlhood and female friendship have begun to gain greater visibility in literature and the media. The issue aims to explore the ways in which female youth has been represented in modern and contemporary Italian cultural production before and after Ferrante’s novels. How have girls and young women been portrayed through the decades? Have the ways of representation changed based on social role models?
Italian Girlhoods and Other Brilliant Friends