Archive of Wu Ming and #Articles
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Wu Ming: "Berlusconi’s lackeys want to ban our books. They started from Venice. Let’s fight back!"
Wu Ming’s books, including Manituana, have been blacklisted thanks to a transparent attempt by "Berlusconi's lackeys" to divert public attention away from a regime in deep crisis by banning books and scapegoating intellectuals.
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Wu Ming on student protests in Italy: "Without a new story every battle is lost"
This week has seen student demonstrations and occupations across Italy as well as more in the UK. Amongst the students protesting Berlusconi's proposed education reforms, some of the most colourful took the form of the 'Book Bloc,' a group using painted shields representing works of literature against police in Rome.
Q, the first novel (written under the nom de plume Luther Blissett) by Wu Ming, the authors of Manituana, was, much to their satisfaction, on the frontline:
This afternoon, in Rome, students confronted the cops while carrying shields with book titles on them. The meaning was: it is culture itself that's resisting the cuts; books themselves are fighting the police. It was in this incendiary midst that our novel Q showed up, and in good company to boot: Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Plato's The Republic, A Thousand Plateaux ... It goes without saying that, whatever will happen, we're proud of what our novel is doing in the streets. Omnia sunt communia!
