Umberto Eco's new book, The Prague Cemetery is "a novel that takes the power of fakery in history to new heights," according to the Times Literary Supplement. "This work of teasing historical pseudo-reconstruction combines an intriguing philosophy of history with an elaborate set of reflections on narrative and the nature of fiction." The author of five bestselling philosophical novels, including The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Eco is a medievalist and semiotician at the University of Bologna in Italy.

Interviewed by Carlin Romano, critic-at-large of The Chronicle of Higher Education