Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

HBO To Broadcast Series Based On Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’

As the Forward reported earlier this month, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, a quartet beginning with “My Brilliant Friend,” are heading to television in a 32-part series.

Now, HBO and the Italian state broadcaster Rai have announced that they’ll be shepherding the series to the screen. As previously announced, it will be directed by Saverio Costanzo, who will also serve as one of its screenwriters.

As Variety’s Nick Vivarelli reported, Costanzo has confirmed that Ferrante, who writes under a pseudonym and has kept her identity anonymous, is helping pen the series.

HBO has so far signed on to distribute the series’ first eight episodes.

The series, which follows the friendship of two Naples-born women through the middle and late twentieth century, felt like a good fit for HBO, the network’s programming president Casey Bloys told Variety.

“An exploration of the complicated intensity of female friendship, these ambitious stories will no doubt resonate with the HBO audience,” he said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.