Elena Ferrante: ‘Maggie Gyllenhaal is filming one of my books. It’s her story to tell now'

It’s important for me – for her, for all women – that her work be hers and turn out well

I would never say to a woman director, “This is my book, this is my perspective. If you want to make a film, you have to stick to it.” I wouldn’t say anything, even if she systematically betrayed my text, even if she wanted to use it simply as a launch pad for her own creative impulse.

That’s what I thought when Maggie Gyllenhaal, an actor I love, announced that she would adapt a novel of mine, The Lost Daughter, for the screen. I’m attached to that book in a particular way. I know that, with it, I ventured into dangerous waters without a life preserver. And part of me would like the story in Gyllenhaal’s images to adhere faithfully to my story, to never go outside the perimeter I drew.

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