“Days of Loneliness” is a delicate and psychologically precise prose—an Italian novel about a woman who is left by her husband, leaving her with two children and a dog. Olga, the main character and narrator, goes through the hardest ordeal—almost slipping from grief and humiliation into madness—yet she holds on to the edge of the abyss and keeps living—and loving. The author who created the image of this woman, Elena Ferrante, is a mysterious personality who prefers to stay in the shadows behind her books. It is even unknown whether she uses a pseudonym or writes under her own name. Her novels have been translated into 40 languages, and in 2016 she entered the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to the weekly magazine Time.