![]() ![]() It all starts when the middle-aged Colonna - a college-dropout and occasional German translator - is approached to ghostwrite a book about a soon-to-be-launched newspaper, Domani (Italian for ‘tomorrow’). Even if its 18 chapters comprise the leanest novel in the Eco canon (which some will undoubtedly view as a good thing), and even if it’s a touch underdeveloped in certain aspects, its taut cabbalistic intrigues plunge the murkiest depths of post-WWII Italy and the West. Set in 1992, as the Cold War subsided into a fool’s peace and the Italian political system was decimated by corruption scandals, it chronicles struggling hack Colonna as he’s voluntarily sucked into the demimonde of tabloid rags and neo-fascist scheming. ![]() Of course, Numero Zero doesn’t do this directly, but via the spinning of a conspiratorial maze that ends up becoming an allegory for the conditions of its own emergence. ![]() Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.Īs inauspicious and paradoxical as it sounds, Umberto Eco’s sixth novel is a success precisely because it portrays its own irrelevance and insignificance. ![]()
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