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Comment by marchenko | Hacker News Reader

I didn't downvote you, but those who did probably decided your response was not particularly well-informed. Men might dominate HN, but women are over-represented as consumers of fiction (and nonfiction), in both print and ebook format-in the UK market, for example, they buy over 2/3rds of fiction books. So simply being popular with women is enough to be a literary phenomenon.

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While I don't disagree with your reasoning, I haven't read this author. However another user describes this author as "what Paulo Coelho was back in the 1990s, but adapted to the #metoo and gender politics momentum."

Now when I saw the heavy handedness of my comment's downvoting, I was surprised. Having further looked into this, I now find the root of the rot of modern discourse: the censorship of gender politics. So I stand by all my comments in this thread and I consider your well reasoned market analysis entirely immaterial to this discussion.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I don't think Elena Ferrante has anything to do with #metoo or gender politics. The author/s claims to have been born in the 40s, and started writing in the 90s. As far as I understand, she writes relatively non-political literary fiction set in a particular historical milieu in Naples that is sensitive to the intimate lives of women. She is not allegorical or self-help-y like Coelho. She just writes in a way that speaks to a very broad audience of women.

I imagine you were downvoted because you posted shallow dismissals and flamebait, both of which break the site guidelines. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them when posting here.

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