Elena Ferrante: ‘One morning I looked at myself in the mirror and recognised my mother’

For a long time, I felt that to stop loving her was the only way I had to love myself

My mother was very beautiful and very clever, like all mammas, so I loved her and hated her. I began to hate her when I was around 10, maybe because I loved her so much that the idea of losing her threw me into a permanent state of anxiety, and to calm myself I had to belittle her.

Sometimes she seemed to me to be beautiful and clever just so that everyone would see me as ugly and stupid. I couldn’t think any thought of my own; I had only her thoughts in my mind. I felt oppressed, tormented by her mania for order, by her outmoded tastes that suffocated mine, by her idea of just and unjust. For a long time, I felt that to stop loving her was the only way I had to love myself – even to have a myself to love.

Related: Elena Ferrante: I don’t have much faith in those who say, ‘Here is a truly new book’

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