Umberto Eco author page

Umberto Eco biography

Umberto Eco was an Italian novelist, essayist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician and medievalist. He studied philosophy at the University of Turin and completed doctoral research on Thomas Aquinas; his first book, Il problema estetico in San Tommaso, developed from that work and was published in 1956.

Eco held academic posts in Italy and became Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna in 1975. His scholarly books include Opera aperta, A Theory of Semiotics, The Role of the Reader and Six Walks in the Fictional Woods.

For younger readers, Eco collaborated with artist Eugenio Carmi on three illustrated philosophical stories: The Bomb and the General, The Three Astronauts and The Gnomes of Gnù. The books use short narratives and visual ideas to address nuclear weapons, prejudice, space exploration and environmental damage.

Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, was published in Italian by Bompiani in 1980 and translated into English by William Weaver in 1983. The historical mystery follows William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk as they investigate deaths in a fourteenth-century monastery.

His later novels include Foucault’s Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero. The Name of the Rose won Italy’s Premio Strega in 1981.