The true identity of international bestselling author Elena Ferrante (The Neapolitan Quartet) has perhaps been uncovered by Italian investigative journalist Claudio Gatti. In October in The New York Review of Books Gatti revealed that he believes the famously pseudonymous author to really be the Rome-based translator Anita Raja. Reportedly in the 1990s Raja worked as a translator for German publisher Edizione E/O, specifically for the imprint Collana degli Azzurri, which at the time published Ferrante’s debut novel, L’amore molesto (published in English as Troubling Love).
Gatti used as evidence payments made by Edizione E/O to Raja far in excess of what would be expected for her official role with the publisher. He also noted that Italian real estate records show Raja purchasing millions of euros worth of property in Rome at the time Elena Ferrante first became an internationally bestselling author.