Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (b. 1932) is an Italian essayist, novelist and semiologist. Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, eclectic intellectual and eminent medievalist, he has written a great many essays on linguistics, mass communication and philosophy. But it is his novels, beginning with The Name of the Rose, that have made him a household name. Eco writes a bimonthly column column for L'Espresso and regularly contributes to La Repubblica and other major European dailies.
Updated: 2 December 2010
For the celebrated novelist and intellectual Umberto Eco, the Wikileaks affair or "Cablegate" not only shows up the hypocrisy that governs relations between states, citizens and the press, but also presages a return to more archaic forms of communication.