In 2011, Elena Ferrante published L’Amica geniale, the first of four novels recounting the friendship of Lenù and Lila, two women who grew up in poverty on the outskirts of post-WWII Naples. Known in English as My Brilliant Friend, the series has been translated into multiple languages, has sold tens of millions copies globally, and has been adapted for television. The novels’ success has a lot to do with their honest depiction of the friendship between Lenù and Lila, a friendship that is ambiguous and ambivalent, colored by rivalry and resentment. But friendship is never simply a private matter. In order to tell their story, Ferrante conjures up the larger forces in Italian society that constrain their choices: misogyny, class conflict, and razzismo, the contempt of wealthier and socially powerful northern Italians for the cultures and languages of the South. It’s an epic work of world-building and translation, sixty years of Italian history written for an international audience. How has Ferrante’s story been “translated” to audiences whose knowledge of Italy might be limited to art history classes and romantic illusions? Students read Ann Goldstein’s translation of the Neapolitan quartet, and they also watch scenes from the HBO series My Brilliant Friend. Critical readings include Ann Cento Bull’s Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction, Pier Pasolini’s Corsair Writings, Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator,” and interviews with Goldstein. Students are encouraged to respond with their own “translations,” equivalents (or resistance) to the novels in their own lives or histories.