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 Page 1


The Interview 
From the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews edited by 
Christopher Silvester.
About the Author
Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at 
Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for 
ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is 
an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of 
Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
Part I
Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has 
become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who 
is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, 
while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have 
been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is 
hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, 
methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite 
extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source 
of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities 
who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as 
an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow 
diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed 
that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is 
stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul
1
 ‘feels that some people are 
wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, 
the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just 
horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — 
It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would 
be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his 
autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success 
1. Known as a cosmopolitan writer . In his travel books and in his documentary works he presents his 
impressions of the country of his ancestors that is India. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 
in 2001.
7
Chap 7.indd   66 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 2


The Interview 
From the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews edited by 
Christopher Silvester.
About the Author
Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at 
Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for 
ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is 
an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of 
Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
Part I
Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has 
become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who 
is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, 
while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have 
been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is 
hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, 
methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite 
extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source 
of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities 
who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as 
an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow 
diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed 
that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is 
stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul
1
 ‘feels that some people are 
wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, 
the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just 
horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — 
It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would 
be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his 
autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success 
1. Known as a cosmopolitan writer . In his travel books and in his documentary works he presents his 
impressions of the country of his ancestors that is India. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 
in 2001.
7
Chap 7.indd   66 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/67
in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. 
Rudyard Kipling
2
 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude 
towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 
14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from 
Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why 
do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, 
just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an 
assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and 
vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling 
had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few 
years before. H. G. Wells
3
 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the 
interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty 
years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin
4
. Saul Bellow
5
, 
who has consented to be interviewed 
on several occasions, nevertheless 
once described interviews as being 
like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet 
despite the drawbacks of the interview, 
it is a supremely serviceable medium 
of communication. “These days, more 
than at any other time, our most vivid 
impressions of our contemporaries are 
through interviews,” Denis Brian has 
written. “Almost everything of moment 
reaches us through one man asking 
questions of another. Because of this, 
the interviewer holds a position of 
unprecedented power and influence.”
2. A prolific writer who was known as the poet of the common soldier. Kipling’s Jungle Book which 
is a story of Kimball O’ Hara and his adventures in the Himalayas is considered as a children’s 
classic all over the world.
3. An English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian he is known for his works of 
science fiction. Wells best known books are The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and 
The War of the Worlds.
4. A great Russian revolutionary and an active political organiser. 
5. A playwright as well as a novelist, Bellow’s works were influenced widely by World War II. Among 
his most famous characters are Augie March and Moses. He published short stories translated 
from Yiddish. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. 
1. What are some of the positive 
views on interviews?
2. Why do most celebrity writers 
despise being interviewed?
3. What is the belief in some 
primitive cultures about being 
photographed?
6. What do you understand by 
the expression “thumbprints 
on his windpipe”?
5. Who, in today’s world, is our 
chief source of information 
about personalities?
Chap 7.indd   67 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 3


The Interview 
From the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews edited by 
Christopher Silvester.
About the Author
Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at 
Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for 
ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is 
an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of 
Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
Part I
Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has 
become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who 
is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, 
while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have 
been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is 
hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, 
methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite 
extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source 
of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities 
who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as 
an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow 
diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed 
that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is 
stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul
1
 ‘feels that some people are 
wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, 
the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just 
horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — 
It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would 
be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his 
autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success 
1. Known as a cosmopolitan writer . In his travel books and in his documentary works he presents his 
impressions of the country of his ancestors that is India. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 
in 2001.
7
Chap 7.indd   66 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/67
in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. 
Rudyard Kipling
2
 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude 
towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 
14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from 
Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why 
do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, 
just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an 
assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and 
vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling 
had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few 
years before. H. G. Wells
3
 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the 
interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty 
years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin
4
. Saul Bellow
5
, 
who has consented to be interviewed 
on several occasions, nevertheless 
once described interviews as being 
like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet 
despite the drawbacks of the interview, 
it is a supremely serviceable medium 
of communication. “These days, more 
than at any other time, our most vivid 
impressions of our contemporaries are 
through interviews,” Denis Brian has 
written. “Almost everything of moment 
reaches us through one man asking 
questions of another. Because of this, 
the interviewer holds a position of 
unprecedented power and influence.”
2. A prolific writer who was known as the poet of the common soldier. Kipling’s Jungle Book which 
is a story of Kimball O’ Hara and his adventures in the Himalayas is considered as a children’s 
classic all over the world.
3. An English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian he is known for his works of 
science fiction. Wells best known books are The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and 
The War of the Worlds.
4. A great Russian revolutionary and an active political organiser. 
5. A playwright as well as a novelist, Bellow’s works were influenced widely by World War II. Among 
his most famous characters are Augie March and Moses. He published short stories translated 
from Yiddish. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. 
1. What are some of the positive 
views on interviews?
2. Why do most celebrity writers 
despise being interviewed?
3. What is the belief in some 
primitive cultures about being 
photographed?
6. What do you understand by 
the expression “thumbprints 
on his windpipe”?
5. Who, in today’s world, is our 
chief source of information 
about personalities?
Chap 7.indd   67 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
68/Flamingo 
Part II
“I am a professor who writes novels on Sundays” – Umberto Eco
The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto 
Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from  
The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of 
Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation 
as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), 
literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he 
turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, 
essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written 
output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he 
acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the 
publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 
10 million copies.
Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge 
once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can 
do all the things he [Eco] does.” 
Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many 
things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing 
the same thing. 
Mukund: Which is?
Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have 
some philosophical interests and I pursue them through 
my academic work and my novels. Even my books for 
children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the 
same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. 
 And then I have a secret. Did you know what will 
happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the 
universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? 
The universe will become as big as my fist. 
 Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. 
I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my 
place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming 
up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty 
Chap 7.indd   68 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 4


The Interview 
From the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews edited by 
Christopher Silvester.
About the Author
Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at 
Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for 
ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is 
an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of 
Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
Part I
Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has 
become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who 
is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, 
while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have 
been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is 
hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, 
methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite 
extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source 
of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities 
who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as 
an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow 
diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed 
that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is 
stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul
1
 ‘feels that some people are 
wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, 
the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just 
horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — 
It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would 
be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his 
autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success 
1. Known as a cosmopolitan writer . In his travel books and in his documentary works he presents his 
impressions of the country of his ancestors that is India. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 
in 2001.
7
Chap 7.indd   66 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/67
in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. 
Rudyard Kipling
2
 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude 
towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 
14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from 
Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why 
do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, 
just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an 
assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and 
vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling 
had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few 
years before. H. G. Wells
3
 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the 
interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty 
years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin
4
. Saul Bellow
5
, 
who has consented to be interviewed 
on several occasions, nevertheless 
once described interviews as being 
like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet 
despite the drawbacks of the interview, 
it is a supremely serviceable medium 
of communication. “These days, more 
than at any other time, our most vivid 
impressions of our contemporaries are 
through interviews,” Denis Brian has 
written. “Almost everything of moment 
reaches us through one man asking 
questions of another. Because of this, 
the interviewer holds a position of 
unprecedented power and influence.”
2. A prolific writer who was known as the poet of the common soldier. Kipling’s Jungle Book which 
is a story of Kimball O’ Hara and his adventures in the Himalayas is considered as a children’s 
classic all over the world.
3. An English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian he is known for his works of 
science fiction. Wells best known books are The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and 
The War of the Worlds.
4. A great Russian revolutionary and an active political organiser. 
5. A playwright as well as a novelist, Bellow’s works were influenced widely by World War II. Among 
his most famous characters are Augie March and Moses. He published short stories translated 
from Yiddish. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. 
1. What are some of the positive 
views on interviews?
2. Why do most celebrity writers 
despise being interviewed?
3. What is the belief in some 
primitive cultures about being 
photographed?
6. What do you understand by 
the expression “thumbprints 
on his windpipe”?
5. Who, in today’s world, is our 
chief source of information 
about personalities?
Chap 7.indd   67 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
68/Flamingo 
Part II
“I am a professor who writes novels on Sundays” – Umberto Eco
The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto 
Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from  
The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of 
Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation 
as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), 
literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he 
turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, 
essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written 
output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he 
acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the 
publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 
10 million copies.
Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge 
once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can 
do all the things he [Eco] does.” 
Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many 
things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing 
the same thing. 
Mukund: Which is?
Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have 
some philosophical interests and I pursue them through 
my academic work and my novels. Even my books for 
children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the 
same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. 
 And then I have a secret. Did you know what will 
happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the 
universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? 
The universe will become as big as my fist. 
 Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. 
I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my 
place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming 
up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty 
Chap 7.indd   68 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/69
space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your 
elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I 
have already written an article! (Laughs). 
Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your  
non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain 
playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked 
departure from a regular academic style — which is 
invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have 
you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it 
something that just came naturally to you? 
Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation 
in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a 
lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false 
hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they 
put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story 
of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” 
At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on 
to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he 
appreciated it. 
 At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly 
books should be written the way I had done — by telling 
the story of the research. This is why my essays always 
have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I 
started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age 
of 50, more or less. 
 I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was 
always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a 
novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or 
another but he died before he could do so. I never felt 
this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by 
accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. 
Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. 
Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic 
you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the 
publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five 
Chap 7.indd   69 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 5


The Interview 
From the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews edited by 
Christopher Silvester.
About the Author
Christopher Silvester (1959) was a student of history at 
Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was a reporter for Private Eye for 
ten years and has written features for Vanity Fair. Following is 
an excerpt taken from his introduction to the Penguin Book of 
Interviews, An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day.
Part I
Since its invention a little over 130 years ago, the interview has 
become a commonplace of journalism. Today, almost everybody who 
is literate will have read an interview at some point in their lives, 
while from the other point of view, several thousand celebrities have 
been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly. So it is 
hardly surprising that opinions of the interview — of its functions, 
methods and merits — vary considerably. Some might make quite 
extravagant claims for it as being, in its highest form, a source 
of truth, and, in its practice, an art. Others, usually celebrities 
who see themselves as its victims, might despise the interview as 
an unwarranted intrusion into their lives, or feel that it somehow 
diminishes them, just as in some primitive cultures it is believed 
that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody then one is 
stealing that person’s soul. V. S. Naipaul
1
 ‘feels that some people are 
wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves,’ Lewis Carroll, 
the creator of Alice in Wonderland, was said to have had ‘a just 
horror of the interviewer’ and he never consented to be interviewed — 
It was his horror of being lionized which made him thus repel would 
be acquaintances, interviewers, and the persistent petitioners for his 
autograph and he would afterwards relate the stories of his success 
1. Known as a cosmopolitan writer . In his travel books and in his documentary works he presents his 
impressions of the country of his ancestors that is India. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 
in 2001.
7
Chap 7.indd   66 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/67
in silencing all such people with much satisfaction and amusement. 
Rudyard Kipling
2
 expressed an even more condemnatory attitude 
towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 
14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from 
Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why 
do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, 
just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an 
assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and 
vile. No respectable man would ask it, much less give it,” Yet Kipling 
had himself perpetrated such an ‘assault’ on Mark Twain only a few 
years before. H. G. Wells
3
 in an interview in 1894 referred to ‘the 
interviewing ordeal’, but was a fairly frequent interviewee and forty 
years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin
4
. Saul Bellow
5
, 
who has consented to be interviewed 
on several occasions, nevertheless 
once described interviews as being 
like thumbprints on his windpipe. Yet 
despite the drawbacks of the interview, 
it is a supremely serviceable medium 
of communication. “These days, more 
than at any other time, our most vivid 
impressions of our contemporaries are 
through interviews,” Denis Brian has 
written. “Almost everything of moment 
reaches us through one man asking 
questions of another. Because of this, 
the interviewer holds a position of 
unprecedented power and influence.”
2. A prolific writer who was known as the poet of the common soldier. Kipling’s Jungle Book which 
is a story of Kimball O’ Hara and his adventures in the Himalayas is considered as a children’s 
classic all over the world.
3. An English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian he is known for his works of 
science fiction. Wells best known books are The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and 
The War of the Worlds.
4. A great Russian revolutionary and an active political organiser. 
5. A playwright as well as a novelist, Bellow’s works were influenced widely by World War II. Among 
his most famous characters are Augie March and Moses. He published short stories translated 
from Yiddish. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. 
1. What are some of the positive 
views on interviews?
2. Why do most celebrity writers 
despise being interviewed?
3. What is the belief in some 
primitive cultures about being 
photographed?
6. What do you understand by 
the expression “thumbprints 
on his windpipe”?
5. Who, in today’s world, is our 
chief source of information 
about personalities?
Chap 7.indd   67 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
68/Flamingo 
Part II
“I am a professor who writes novels on Sundays” – Umberto Eco
The following is an extract from an interview of Umberto 
Eco. The interviewer is Mukund Padmanabhan from  
The Hindu. Umberto Eco, a professor at the University of 
Bologna in Italy had already acquired a formidable reputation 
as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics (the study of signs), 
literary interpretation, and medieval aesthetics before he 
turned to writing fiction. Literary fiction, academic texts, 
essays, children’s books, newspaper articles—his written 
output is staggeringly large and wide-ranging, In 1980, he 
acquired the equivalent of intellectual superstardom with the 
publication of The Name of the Rose, which sold more than 
10 million copies.
Mukund: The English novelist and academic David Lodge 
once remarked, “I can’t understand how one man can 
do all the things he [Eco] does.” 
Umberto Eco: Maybe I give the impression of doing many 
things. But in the end, I am convinced I am always doing 
the same thing. 
Mukund: Which is?
Umberto Eco: Aah, now that is more difficult to explain. I have 
some philosophical interests and I pursue them through 
my academic work and my novels. Even my books for 
children are about non-violence and peace...you see, the 
same bunch of ethical, philosophical interests. 
 And then I have a secret. Did you know what will 
happen if you eliminate the empty spaces from the 
universe, eliminate the empty spaces in all the atoms? 
The universe will become as big as my fist. 
 Similarly, we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. 
I call them interstices. Say you are coming over to my 
place. You are in an elevator and while you are coming 
up, I am waiting for you. This is an interstice, an empty 
Chap 7.indd   68 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
The Interview/69
space. I work in empty spaces. While waiting for your 
elevator to come up from the first to the third floor, I 
have already written an article! (Laughs). 
Mukund: Not everyone can do that of course. Your  
non-fictional writing, your scholarly work has a certain 
playful and personal quality about it. It is a marked 
departure from a regular academic style — which is 
invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring. Have 
you consciously adopted an informal approach or is it 
something that just came naturally to you? 
Umberto Eco: When I presented my first Doctoral dissertation 
in Italy, one of the Professors said, “Scholars learn a 
lot of a certain subject, then they make a lot of false 
hypotheses, then they correct them and at the end, they 
put the conclusions. You, on the contrary, told the story 
of your research. Even including your trials and errors.” 
At the same time, he recognised I was right and went on 
to publish my dissertation as a book, which meant he 
appreciated it. 
 At that point, at the age of 22, I understood scholarly 
books should be written the way I had done — by telling 
the story of the research. This is why my essays always 
have a narrative aspect. And this is why probably I 
started writing narratives [novels] so late — at the age 
of 50, more or less. 
 I remember that my dear friend Roland Barthes was 
always frustrated that he was an essayist and not a 
novelist. He wanted to do creative writing one day or 
another but he died before he could do so. I never felt 
this kind of frustration. I started writing novels by 
accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started. 
Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration. 
Mukund: Talking about novels, from being a famous academic 
you went on to becoming spectacularly famous after the 
publication of The Name of the Rose. You’ve written five 
Chap 7.indd   69 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
Reprint 2025-26
70/Flamingo 
novels against many more scholarly works of non-fiction, 
at least more than 20 of them... 
Umberto Eco: Over 40. 
Mukund: Over 40! Among them a seminal piece of work on 
semiotics. But ask most people about Umberto Eco and 
they will say, “Oh, he’s the novelist.” Does that bother 
you? 
Umberto Eco: Yes. Because I consider myself a university 
professor who writes novels on Sundays. It’s not a joke. 
I participate in academic conferences and not meetings 
of Pen Clubs and writers. I identify myself with the 
academic community. 
 But okay, if they [most people] have read only the 
novels... (laughs and shrugs). I know that by writing 
novels, I reach a larger audience. I cannot expect to 
have one million readers with stuff on semiotics. 
Mukund: Which brings me to my next question. The Name of 
the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detective yarn at 
one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology, 
and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass 
audience. Were you puzzled at all by this? 
Umberto Eco: No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes 
publishers. And this is because journalists and 
publishers believe that people like trash and don’t like 
difficult reading experiences. Consider there are six 
billion people on this planet. The Name of the Rose sold 
between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached 
only a small percentage of readers. But it is exactly these 
kinds of readers who don’t want easy experiences. Or 
at least don’t always want this. I myself, at 9 pm after 
dinner, watch television and want to see either ‘Miami 
Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoy it and I need it. But 
not all day. 
Chap 7.indd   70 12/11/2024   11:21:05 AM
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