Prietena mea genială

Raffaella Cerullo and Elena Greco are known as Lila and Lenu. Their bond as friends shapes both their lives. They meet as girls in a poor district outside Naples. Their story starts in the late 1950s and spans decades. They try to break contact. In the end, one of them vanishes in a strange way.

This graphic novel tells Elena Ferrante’s story in words and pictures. Chiara Lagani writes the text. Mara Cerri makes the art. The comic form gives a new view of their bond. Cerasela Barbone translates the text from Italian into Romanian.

Lagani was born in Ravenna in 1974. She acts, writes plays and translates. In 1992, she and Luigi De Angelis founded Fanny & Alexander. She writes new texts for the company and acts with it. The group has staged works based on Nabokov’s Ada. It has also adapted The Wizard of Oz. Another work drew on Ferrante’s four-book story. In 2017, Lagani won a special Premio Riccione award. It marked her new ways of making drama. She co-wrote La mia battaglia with Elio Germano. She has translated books by Frank L. Baum and Lewis Carroll.

Cerri was born in Pesaro in 1978. She draws art and makes picture books for children. She also makes animated films. She made art for Ferrante’s The Beach at Night. She has worked with Andrea Bajani and Paolo Cognetti. She has also worked with Nadia Terranova and Davide Orecchio. She and Magda Guidi made two short animated films. One won at the Turin Film Festival. The other competed at Venice. They also made animation for Ferrante Fever. Giacomo Durzi made this documentary. Cerri designed the look of the 2020 Turin International Book Fair.