And yet, there is also something slightly elusive about this work - Ferrante is a pseudonym, and she didn't deliver the lectures herself. They were instead performed by an actress. So early on in this book, we're reminded that any image we have of the author is filtered through her pen name, and her shunning of the limelight.

All of this adds an interesting note to her rumination on the self who writes.

In the first essay, "Pain and pen", Ferrante talks about almost opposing forces in her writing. From her early years, there was one type of writing which she endeavoured to always keep within the red margins ruled either side of her school books. This well-balanced, reasonable, structured writing won her the praise of her teachers, and later the world.

Then, there is another sort of writing which is disorderly, unpredictable and thrilling. Like some sort of yin and yang, the unruly sustains and feeds the successful writing for which she is known and lauded.

There is also a wonderful discussion of form in literature. Ferrante notes that even the audacious Samuel Beckett identified form as the one essential ingredient in literature.

The restless desire to bend, distort and remake a form should always be honoured though. It is this, she says, which ultimately marks out an "inevitable" author from someone who may produce a one-off in the form of a clever, charming novel.

Also intriguing is her examination of the mechanics of writing, and of the magical moment when the writer perceives something which demands to be written down, and thereby brought into being. But Ferrante, and the great Dante before her, came to understand writing as a "race against time", a race in which the scribbler almost always lags behind the shimmering mind.

Even the unrivalled Dante admitted that "encasing human experience in the alphabet is an art susceptible to searing disappointment".

In the final pages, Ferrante praises Dante for descriptions which are never mere descriptions, but rather "the self transplanted, the heart hurtling swiftly... from inside to out".

The self transplanted could equally apply to Ferrante, this publicity-shunning author who was pushed onto the world stage with her Neapolitan quartet, novels which recast forever the meat and bones of female friendship.

This is also a beautifully translated work, with Ann Goldstein delivering melodic, measured and deeply satisfying sentences.