“I’m dead, but fine”

The frantumaglia and the lucciole

Abstract

Frantumaglia is a word from the neapolitan dialect, introduced by Elena Ferrante (2017) in her book of the same title. According to her, it was the word her mother used to describe the mental confusion that occasionally afflicted her. For Ferrante, the word echoes loss, instability, and debris. In her work, the author discusses how frantumaglia imposed itself upon her, pushing her toward writing. Building on this notion, this text proposes a dialogue between frantumaglia and the image of the lucciole (fireflies), a concept from Georges Didi-Huberman's Survival of the fireflies (2011), to investigate how both ideas illuminate writing as a possibility for life in the face of chaos and fragmentation.