UMBERTO ECO
Italian literary critic, novelist, semiotician, who gained international fame with his intellectual detective story IL NOME DELLA ROSA (1980, The Name of the Rose), a book about books. It extended the use of semiotics to the fiction, and combined various genres,
literary theory, mediaeval studies, mystery, and biblical exegesis. As a semiotician Eco is known for his contribution to the theoretical study of signs encompassing all cultural phenomena. Much of his study, including A Theory of Semiotics (1976), has been on the
development of a methodology of communication.
"'L'Anticristo può nascere dalla stressa pietà, dall'eccessivo amor di Dio o della verità, come l'eretico nasce dal santo e l'indemoniato dal veggente.Temi, Adso, i profeti e coloro disposti a morire per la verità, ché di solito fan morire moltissimi con loro, spesso prima di loro, talvolta al posto loro.'" (from Il nome della
rosa).
Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria. He received a doctoral degree from the University of Turin in 1954 at the age of 22. His thesis dealt the early philosopher and religious thinker St. Thomas Aquinas. From 1954 to 1959 he worked in Milan as a cultural editor for RAI, Italian Radio-Television, also lecturing at the University of Turin (1956-64). In 1958-59 Eco served in the army. He was an university teacher in Milan (1964-65) and Florence (1965-69). From 1969 to 1971 he was a teacher at Milan Polytechnic. At the early age of 39 Eco was appointed professor of semiotics at Bologna University in the north of Italy. Eco's literary career started in late 1950s, when he was a columnist for Il Verri, writing 'Diario minimo' (1959-61). He was cofounder of Marcatré (1961) and Quindici (1967), edited Versus from 1971, and member of editorial board in Semiotica, Degrés, Text,Structuralist Review, Communication, Problemi dell'Informazione, and Alfabeta. Eco has
contributed regularly to daily newspapers (Corrire della Sera), weekly magazines (L'Espresso), and artistic and intellectual periodicals (Quindici, Il Verri, et al.). Eco has written from the 1970s for quite separate audiences - general readers on the other hand,
and academic specialists on the other. His articles have appeared in such books as DIARIO MINIMO (1963), IL COSTUME DI CASA (1973), DALLA PERIFERIA DELL'IMPERO (1977), and How to Travel with a Salmon (1992). In these books the reader can enjoy Eco's playful insights about such topics as militarism, computer jargon,Westerns, airplane food, librarians, Amtrak trains, bad coffee, express mail and fax machines.
This is one of the fifteen writers who have been chosen to represent the countries of the European Union in one of the books created to celebrate our Spring Day in Europe. The others have not been included due to space problems.
