Wu Ming
Encyclopedia
Wu Ming is a pseudonym
for a group of Italian
authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett
community in Bologna
.
In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q
(first edition 1999).
Unlike the open name "Luther Blissett", "Wu Ming" stands for a defined group of writers active in literature and popular culture. The band authored several novels, some of which have been translated in many countries.
Their books are seen as part of a body of literary works (the "nebula", as it is frequently called in Italy) described as the New Italian Epic
, a phrase that was proposed by Wu Ming themselves.
, "wu ming" means "anonymous" but the collective initially adopted the name as a pun, for "wu ming" also means "five people" (五名) when the first syllable is pronounced with another tone. The name of the band is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech
) and as a rejection of the celebrity-making machine which turns the author into a star. "Wu Ming" is also a reference to the third sentence in the Dàodéjīng (Tao Te Ching
): "Wu ming tian di zhi shi"（無名天地之始), "Nameless is Heaven's and Earth's Origin".
The members of Wu Ming are typically known as "Wu Ming 1", "Wu Ming 2", "Wu Ming 3", "Wu Ming 4", and "Wu Ming 5". Real names are not secret though:
The five authors do extensive book tours (which they describe as "almost gratefuldeadesque") and frequently appear in public. However, they refuse to be photographed or filmed by the media. Even on their official website, they do not provide any pictures of themselves. Here is how Wu Ming 1 explained the group's stance in a 2007 interview:
In Wu Ming's official biographical page (Italian version), the collective denies rumors they once beat up a press photographer:
"The dates and places vary, but the core of all versions stays the same. Well, it never ever happened, but it's true that, like Auda abu Tayi
in Lawrence of Arabia
or King Kong
in the famous gala opening scene, we're no camera-mongers. We don't go on TV either. We are shy."
, and the relationship between Europe and America.
Background research began in 1999, after the publication of the group's previous novel Q
. Plots were outlined in the aftermath of the Kosovo War
. Actual writing work ended ten days after September 11th, on the eve of the war in Afghanistan
. These two wars are explicitly referred to in the novel's End Titles: "Begun in May 1999, during the Nato bombings of Belgrade. Delivered to the Italian publishers on 21 September 2001, awaiting the escalation". The events leading to (and following) September 11th are also allegorically described in the book's forenote.
54 was published in Italy in the springtime of 2002. In the following months, Wu Ming collaborated with Italian folk-rock band Yo Yo Mundi, whose ensuing concept album 54 (2004) was directly inspired from the novel.
), directed by Guido Chiesa, released in Italy in 2004.
The original title means "Working slowly" and cites a protest song, a popular leftist anthem in the 1970's: "Work slowly / And effortlessly / Work may hurt you / And send you to the hospital / Where there's no bed left / And you may even die. / Work slowly / And effortlessly / Health is priceless." (Translated by Wu Ming)
The film is set during an actual student uprising that paralysed Bologna for several days in March 1977. Several narrative threads are woven around Radio Alice
, the station run by the "creative wing" (the so-called "Mao-Dadaists") of the radical Autonomia movement. In the morning of March 11 a brawl involving radical and catholic students escalated to a full-scale riot in the university district. The Carabinieri
riot squad attacked and shot down a 25-year-old student called Francesco Lorusso. As a result, thousands of students and activists stormed the centre of the town, clashing with the police and throwing molotov cocktail
s. On March 13 the premises of Radio Alice were invaded and vandalised by the police, the station was shut down and every member of the staff was arrested. The film tells the story mixing real anecdotes with semi-fictional characters.
Radio Alice has won several awards and prizes at movie festivals all over Europe, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best Young Actors at the 2004 Venice Film Festival
and the First Prize at the 2005 Festival de Cinema Politic in Barcelona
, Spain
.
In the springtime of 2007, Manituana reached #4 in the Italian best-seller charts The English translation was published in the UK and the US by Verso Books
in the Fall of 2009.
In an entry on their weblog, Wu Ming wrote that
The novel is set in the years 1775-1783 in New York's Mohawk Valley
, Quebec
and London (UK). Among the many real historical chapters that populate the book, the most important ones are Joseph Brant
, war chief of the Mohawk nation, and Molly Brant, a matron of the Wolf clan in the Iroquois
Six Nations.
In Italy Manituana was awarded the Premio Sergio Leone
2007 and the Premio Emilio Salgari
2008. In November 2010 it was nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
.
Manituana was published in English in October 2009, by Verso Books
.
The novel, entitled Altai, was published in Italy on November 20th 2009 and immediately reached #5 in the national list of best-sellers.
Wu Ming 1 is the author of New Thing (2004), an " unidentified narrative object" blending fiction, journalism and free verse. It is an allegorical tale on free jazz
and the 1960's, set in 1967 New York City and constructed around John Coltrane
's final days. The French newspaper Le Monde
described the book as "a choral novel, an inquiry, and a political jam-session loaded with syncopated poetry".
Wu Ming 2 is the author of Guerra agli Umani [War on the Humans] (2004), a satire of primitivism
and survivalism
set on the Appennines in an undefined year. The main character and narrator is called Marco, but he nicknames himself "Marco Walden", after Thoreau's Walden
. At the beginning of the book, Marco quits his job as a restroom cleaner at a big cemetery, because he wants to leave the city (presumably Bologna, although it remains unnamed), go to the mountains and become a "hunter-gatherer superhero".
Wu Ming 4 is the author of Stella del mattino [Star of the Morning] (2008). The novel is set in 1919 Oxford and centered around T.E. Lawrence suffering writer's block while working on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Among the characters Lawrence encounters in the book, important roles are played by writers J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and, most notably, Robert Graves
. Wu Ming themselves described Stella del mattino as "the best solo novel ever manufactured in our smithy" and "a bridge between our collective and solo novels".
Wu Ming 5 is the author of both Havana Glam (2001) and Free Karma Food (2007). Havana Glam is set in an alternate 1970's world where David Bowie
is a communist sympathizer and has a "Cuban period" instead of a " Berlin period". This causes some turmoil in Havana, as the Cuban intelligence suspect the rockstar to be an infiltrator. Free Karma Food describes a future society where all kinds of cattle have been killed by a global pandemic known as "The Great Murrain". Some Italian critics described Wu Ming 5's novels as belonging to the literary sub-genre known as "New Weird
". Such inclusion, however, has been questioned in weblogs and social network discussion groups devoted to science-fiction.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
for a group of Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett
Luther Blissett (nom de plume)
Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open reputation" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and activists all over Europe and the Americas since 1994...
community in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
.
In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q
Q (novel)
Q is a novel by Luther Blissett first published in Italian in 1999. The novel is set in Europe during the 16th century, and deals with Protestant reformation movements....
(first edition 1999).
Unlike the open name "Luther Blissett", "Wu Ming" stands for a defined group of writers active in literature and popular culture. The band authored several novels, some of which have been translated in many countries.
Their books are seen as part of a body of literary works (the "nebula", as it is frequently called in Italy) described as the New Italian Epic
New Italian Epic
New Italian Epic is a definition suggested by the Italian author Wu Ming 1 to describe a body of literary works written in Italy by various authors starting in 1993, at the end of the ‘First Republic’. This body of works is described as being formed of novels and other literary texts, which share...
, a phrase that was proposed by Wu Ming themselves.
Meaning of the name
In ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, "wu ming" means "anonymous" but the collective initially adopted the name as a pun, for "wu ming" also means "five people" (五名) when the first syllable is pronounced with another tone. The name of the band is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
) and as a rejection of the celebrity-making machine which turns the author into a star. "Wu Ming" is also a reference to the third sentence in the Dàodéjīng (Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching, Dao De Jing, or Daodejing , also simply referred to as the Laozi, whose authorship has been attributed to Laozi, is a Chinese classic text...
): "Wu ming tian di zhi shi"（無名天地之始), "Nameless is Heaven's and Earth's Origin".
Members and public personae
- Roberto Bui (Wu Ming 1)
- Giovanni Cattabriga (Wu Ming 2)
- Luca Di Meo (Wu Ming 3 - He left the group in the spring of 2008)
- Federico Guglielmi (Wu Ming 4) [Not to be confused with the Italian music journalist of the same name]
- Riccardo Pedrini (Wu Ming 5)
The five authors do extensive book tours (which they describe as "almost gratefuldeadesque") and frequently appear in public. However, they refuse to be photographed or filmed by the media. Even on their official website, they do not provide any pictures of themselves. Here is how Wu Ming 1 explained the group's stance in a 2007 interview:
In Wu Ming's official biographical page (Italian version), the collective denies rumors they once beat up a press photographer:
"The dates and places vary, but the core of all versions stays the same. Well, it never ever happened, but it's true that, like Auda abu Tayi
Auda ibu Tayi
Auda ban Harb al-Abo Seed al-Mazro al-Tamame abu Tayi, also Auda ibu Tayi, Awda abu Tayi, etc. was the leader of a section of the Howeitat or Huwaytat tribe of Bedouin Arabs at the time of the Great Arab Revolt during the First World War...
in Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
or King Kong
King Kong
King Kong is a fictional character, a giant movie monster resembling a gorilla, that has appeared in several movies since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 movie, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, as well as various sequels of the first two films...
in the famous gala opening scene, we're no camera-mongers. We don't go on TV either. We are shy."
54
54 is the most representative amongst the books written by the collective in its early years. It is a complex novel about popular culture, the shattered dreams of the Italian ResistanceItalian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
, and the relationship between Europe and America.
Background research began in 1999, after the publication of the group's previous novel Q
Q (novel)
Q is a novel by Luther Blissett first published in Italian in 1999. The novel is set in Europe during the 16th century, and deals with Protestant reformation movements....
. Plots were outlined in the aftermath of the Kosovo War
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
. Actual writing work ended ten days after September 11th, on the eve of the war in Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
. These two wars are explicitly referred to in the novel's End Titles: "Begun in May 1999, during the Nato bombings of Belgrade. Delivered to the Italian publishers on 21 September 2001, awaiting the escalation". The events leading to (and following) September 11th are also allegorically described in the book's forenote.
54 was published in Italy in the springtime of 2002. In the following months, Wu Ming collaborated with Italian folk-rock band Yo Yo Mundi, whose ensuing concept album 54 (2004) was directly inspired from the novel.
Radio Alice / Working Slowly
Wu Ming is also credited as co-writers for the Italian film Lavorare con lentezza (aka Radio AliceRadio Alice
Radio Alice was an Italian free radio broadcasting from Bologna at the end of the 1970s. It started transmitting on February 9, 1976 using an ex-military transmitter on a frequency of 100.6 MHz. The station was closed by the carabinieri on March 12, 1977. Radio Alice then re-opened again for two...
), directed by Guido Chiesa, released in Italy in 2004.
The original title means "Working slowly" and cites a protest song, a popular leftist anthem in the 1970's: "Work slowly / And effortlessly / Work may hurt you / And send you to the hospital / Where there's no bed left / And you may even die. / Work slowly / And effortlessly / Health is priceless." (Translated by Wu Ming)
The film is set during an actual student uprising that paralysed Bologna for several days in March 1977. Several narrative threads are woven around Radio Alice
Radio Alice
Radio Alice was an Italian free radio broadcasting from Bologna at the end of the 1970s. It started transmitting on February 9, 1976 using an ex-military transmitter on a frequency of 100.6 MHz. The station was closed by the carabinieri on March 12, 1977. Radio Alice then re-opened again for two...
, the station run by the "creative wing" (the so-called "Mao-Dadaists") of the radical Autonomia movement. In the morning of March 11 a brawl involving radical and catholic students escalated to a full-scale riot in the university district. The Carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
riot squad attacked and shot down a 25-year-old student called Francesco Lorusso. As a result, thousands of students and activists stormed the centre of the town, clashing with the police and throwing molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s. On March 13 the premises of Radio Alice were invaded and vandalised by the police, the station was shut down and every member of the staff was arrested. The film tells the story mixing real anecdotes with semi-fictional characters.
Radio Alice has won several awards and prizes at movie festivals all over Europe, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best Young Actors at the 2004 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
and the First Prize at the 2005 Festival de Cinema Politic in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
.
Manituana
Manituana is the third of Wu Ming's collectively authored novels. It was written in the 2003-07 period and published in Italy in 2007. It is the first episode of an 18th-century pan-Atlantic trilogy which the authors call "the Atlantic Triptych". All novels will be set in the 1770s, all across the Atlantic Ocean (North America, Europe, the West Indies and Africa), before and during the American Revolution.In the springtime of 2007, Manituana reached #4 in the Italian best-seller charts The English translation was published in the UK and the US by Verso Books
Verso Books
Verso Books is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of New Left Review. The company claims "global sales approaching $3 million per year and over 350 titles in print," possibly making it "the largest radical publisher in the English-language...
in the Fall of 2009.
In an entry on their weblog, Wu Ming wrote that
The novel is set in the years 1775-1783 in New York's Mohawk Valley
Mohawk Valley
The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains....
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
and London (UK). Among the many real historical chapters that populate the book, the most important ones are Joseph Brant
Joseph Brant
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. He was perhaps the most well-known American Indian of his generation...
, war chief of the Mohawk nation, and Molly Brant, a matron of the Wolf clan in the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
Six Nations.
In Italy Manituana was awarded the Premio Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...
2007 and the Premio Emilio Salgari
Emilio Salgari
Emilio Salgari was an Italian writer of action adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction.For over a century, his novels were mandatory reading for generations of youth eager for exotic adventures. In Italy, his extensive body of work was more widely read than that of Dante. Today...
2008. In November 2010 it was nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...
.
Manituana was published in English in October 2009, by Verso Books
Verso Books
Verso Books is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of New Left Review. The company claims "global sales approaching $3 million per year and over 350 titles in print," possibly making it "the largest radical publisher in the English-language...
.
Altai
In May 2009 Wu Ming announced that they had almost finished writing a new book, entitled Altai, set "in [their debut novel] Q's world and historical continuum". "After this accomplishment", they added, "we’ll go back to the Atlantic Triptych." Later on, they explained:The novel, entitled Altai, was published in Italy on November 20th 2009 and immediately reached #5 in the national list of best-sellers.
The solo novels
Starting from 2001, each individual member of Wu Ming also authored one or more "solo" novels. Some of them have been translated into other languages, but not yet in English.Wu Ming 1 is the author of New Thing (2004), an " unidentified narrative object" blending fiction, journalism and free verse. It is an allegorical tale on free jazz
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
and the 1960's, set in 1967 New York City and constructed around John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
's final days. The French newspaper Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
described the book as "a choral novel, an inquiry, and a political jam-session loaded with syncopated poetry".
Wu Ming 2 is the author of Guerra agli Umani [War on the Humans] (2004), a satire of primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism
Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
and survivalism
Survivalism
Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order...
set on the Appennines in an undefined year. The main character and narrator is called Marco, but he nicknames himself "Marco Walden", after Thoreau's Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
. At the beginning of the book, Marco quits his job as a restroom cleaner at a big cemetery, because he wants to leave the city (presumably Bologna, although it remains unnamed), go to the mountains and become a "hunter-gatherer superhero".
Wu Ming 4 is the author of Stella del mattino [Star of the Morning] (2008). The novel is set in 1919 Oxford and centered around T.E. Lawrence suffering writer's block while working on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Among the characters Lawrence encounters in the book, important roles are played by writers J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and, most notably, Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
. Wu Ming themselves described Stella del mattino as "the best solo novel ever manufactured in our smithy" and "a bridge between our collective and solo novels".
Wu Ming 5 is the author of both Havana Glam (2001) and Free Karma Food (2007). Havana Glam is set in an alternate 1970's world where David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
is a communist sympathizer and has a "Cuban period" instead of a " Berlin period". This causes some turmoil in Havana, as the Cuban intelligence suspect the rockstar to be an infiltrator. Free Karma Food describes a future society where all kinds of cattle have been killed by a global pandemic known as "The Great Murrain". Some Italian critics described Wu Ming 5's novels as belonging to the literary sub-genre known as "New Weird
New Weird
The New Weird is a literary genre that began in the 1990s and developed in a series of novels and stories published from 2001 to 2005. The writers involved are mostly novelists who are considered to be parts of the horror and/or speculative fiction genres but who often cross genre boundaries...
". Such inclusion, however, has been questioned in weblogs and social network discussion groups devoted to science-fiction.
Trivia
- Wu Ming 1 is the Italian translator of several Elmore LeonardElmore LeonardElmore John Leonard Jr. , better known as Elmore Leonard, is an American novelist and screenwriter. His earliest published novels in the 1950s were westerns, but Leonard went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures.Among his...
novels. He translated Cat Chaser, Freaky Deaky, Tishomingo BluesTishomingo Blues (novel)Tishomingo Blues is a 2002 novel by Elmore Leonard, set in Mississippi, about two fledgling allies, the local Dixie Mafia, and a high-stakes Civil War re-enactment. It happens to be Leonard's favorite book of the books he has written...
and Mr Paradise, and wrote an essay on how to render Leonard's prose into Italian The essay was published in the catalogue of the 2006 Courmayer Noir in Festival, at which Leonard was presented with the Raymond Chandler Award. Wu Ming 1 also translated one Walter MosleyWalter MosleyWalter Ellis Mosley is an American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. He has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los...
novel, Little Scarlet. In 2010 he became the Italian translator of Stephen KingStephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's books.
- Riccardo / Wu Ming 5 was guitar player in :it:Nabat, one of the first Oi!Oi!Oi! is a working class subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads and other working-class youths ....
bands to reach a cult following in Italy during the early 1980s. The band broke up in 1987 but got together again in the early 1990s, only to break up again in 1998. Nabat reunited in 2010 for a comeback tour, with Wu Ming 5 still on guitar, "splitting services between two bands [Wu Ming and Nabat]", as he quipped during a radio interview.
Fiction written by the whole collective
- QQ (novel)Q is a novel by Luther Blissett first published in Italian in 1999. The novel is set in Europe during the 16th century, and deals with Protestant reformation movements....
(originally written as Luther Blissett, 1999, published in 18 languages) - Hatchets of War (with Vitaliano Ravagli, 2000)
- 5454 (novel)54 is a novel by Wu Ming first published in Italian in 2002.Wu Ming is a collective of five authors founded in 2000. The members were formerly associated with the Luther Blissett Project, and four of them wrote the international best-selling novel Q....
(2002). Translated into English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Dutch and Serbian. - ManituanaManituanaManituana is a novel by Wu Ming first published in Italian in 2007.Wu Ming is a collective of five authors founded in 2000. The members were formerly associated with the Luther Blissett Project and wrote the international best-selling novel Q....
(2007, Translated into English, Spanish and French) - Weather Forecasts (a novella, 2008)
- Altai (2009)
- Clockwork Orange Duck (collection of short stories, 2011)
Solo fiction
- Havana Glam (by Wu Ming 5, 2001)
- War on the Humans (by Wu Ming 2, 2004). Translated into Dutch and French
- New Thing (by Wu Ming 1, 2004). Translated into Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and French
- Free Karma Food (by Wu Ming 5, 2006)
- Star of the Morning (by Wu Ming 4, 2008)
- Pontiac: History of a Revolt (by Wu Ming 2, book + cd, 2010)
- One Shot is Enough (by Wu Ming 2, book + cd, 2010)
Non-fiction
- This Revolution Has No Face (2002). A Spanish anthology of articles and short stories
- Giap! (2003). An anthology of essays, articles, e-mail conversations and short stories
- Grand River: A Journey (2008)
- New Italian Epic (a collection of essays on literature, 2009)
- The Path of Gods (by Wu Ming 2, 2010)
- The Imperfect Hero (by Wu Ming 4, 2010)
External links
- Official website's biographical page in English.
- Wu Ming's English language blog
- A Life in Writing: Wu Ming, a profile of the collective published in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 14 November 2009. - A very extensive and detailed interview with the Wu Ming Foundation, conducted by professor Henry JenkinsHenry JenkinsHenry Jenkins III is an American media scholar and currently a Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic Arts...
and published on his blog in two installments, Part 1 and Part 2. - In 2006 Chicago Review published two stories ("In Like Flynn" and "The Emperor's Three Hundred Woodcutters") by and an interview with Wu Ming.