When Claudio Gatti published an investigation into Elena Ferrante’s identity, a few years ago, he raised an outcry both in Italy and abroad. He had pried into the author’s privacy, violated her right to remain anonymous. It was unfair, it was irrelevant, we didn’t want to know.

Didn’t we? Yes and no. There was one conclusion that mattered in Gatti’s article: the person writing Ferrante’s novels was the translator Anita Raja, a woman.