The Lost Daughter is a novel published by writer Elena Ferrante in 2006, in Italian (original title: La Figlia Oscura), and translated to English by Ann Goldstein in 2008.

The novel was adapted to cinema in the film of the same name, in Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut, starring Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley and Dakota Johnson.

Already on the first day she notices a young mother with her little daughter and the two impress Leda not only because they are decidedly more refined than the rest of their rough family, but also because she sees in them echoes of her own past.

Determined to return the doll, Leda calls the number on a flyer posted by Elena's family to find the toy and it is Nina who answers, whom the protagonist surprises in an intimate moment with Gino.

Like Nina, Leda too was a young and talented mother trapped in a claustrophobic and unnerving situation, from which she had then escaped when her daughters were still small to devote herself to an academic career and a relationship with an esteemed English professor.

[1] According to critics: "This is Ferrante's devastating power as a novelist: she navigates the emotional minefields and unsparingly tallies the cycle of psychological damage among multiple generations of women in Leda's family in straightforward, almost curt language".

[2] Several critics have also pointed out the similarity in themes with the most famous Neapolitan Novels, as a story between two women, one of which is an academic who leaves her daughters for a while, and the other is a young mother married to what others call "a bad man".

Gylenhaal wrote and directed the film adaptation, which starred Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard, Ed Harris and Paul Mescal.