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Wu Ming
Wu Ming, Chinese for "anonymous", is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna. Four of the group earlier wrote the novel Q (first edition 1999). Unlike the open name "Luther Blissett", "Wu Ming" stands for a defined group of writers active in literature and popular culture. The band authored several novels, some of which have been translated in many countries.
Their books are seen as part of a body of literary works (the "nebula", as it is frequently called in Italy) described as the New Italian Epic, a phrase that was proposed by Wu Ming.
In Chinese, "wu ming" can mean "anonymous" (traditional Chinese: 無名; simplified Chinese: 无名; pinyin: wúmíng) or, with a different tone on the first syllable, "five people" (Chinese: 五名; pinyin: wǔ míng; 名 is a measure word), the pun being part of the reason the collective adopted the name. The name is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech) and as a rejection of the celebrity-making machine which turns the author into a star. "Wu Ming" is also a reference to the third sentence in the Daodejing: "Heaven and Earth's nameless origin" (traditional Chinese: 無名天地之始; simplified Chinese: 无名天地之始; pinyin: wúmíng tiāndì zhī shǐ).
The group has since grown to include more than five members. As a result, "anonymous" became the preferred interpretation of the name.
The members of Wu Ming are typically known as "Wu Ming 1", "Wu Ming 2", "Wu Ming 3", "Wu Ming 4", and "Wu Ming 5". Their real names are not secret, though:
The five authors do extensive book tours (which they describe as "almost gratefuldeadesque") and frequently appear in public. However, they refuse to be photographed or filmed by the media. Even on their official website, they do not provide any pictures of themselves. Here is how Wu Ming 1 explained the group's stance in a 2007 interview:
Once the writer becomes a face... it's a cannibalistic jumble: that face appears everywhere, almost always out of context. A photo is witness to my absence; it's a banner of distance and solitude. A photo paralyses me, it freezes my life into an instant, it negates my ability to transform into something else. I become a "character", a stopgap to hurriedly fill a page layout, an instrument that amplifies banality. On the other hand my voice – with its grain, with its accents, with its imprecise diction, its tonalities, rhythms, pauses and vacillations – is witness to a presence even when I'm not there; it brings me close to people and doesn't negate my transformative capacity because its presence is dynamic, alive and trembling even when seemingly still.
In Wu Ming's official biographical page (Italian version), the collective denies rumors they once beat up a press photographer:
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Wu Ming
Wu Ming, Chinese for "anonymous", is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna. Four of the group earlier wrote the novel Q (first edition 1999). Unlike the open name "Luther Blissett", "Wu Ming" stands for a defined group of writers active in literature and popular culture. The band authored several novels, some of which have been translated in many countries.
Their books are seen as part of a body of literary works (the "nebula", as it is frequently called in Italy) described as the New Italian Epic, a phrase that was proposed by Wu Ming.
In Chinese, "wu ming" can mean "anonymous" (traditional Chinese: 無名; simplified Chinese: 无名; pinyin: wúmíng) or, with a different tone on the first syllable, "five people" (Chinese: 五名; pinyin: wǔ míng; 名 is a measure word), the pun being part of the reason the collective adopted the name. The name is meant both as a tribute to dissidents ("Wu Ming" is a common byline among Chinese citizens demanding democracy and freedom of speech) and as a rejection of the celebrity-making machine which turns the author into a star. "Wu Ming" is also a reference to the third sentence in the Daodejing: "Heaven and Earth's nameless origin" (traditional Chinese: 無名天地之始; simplified Chinese: 无名天地之始; pinyin: wúmíng tiāndì zhī shǐ).
The group has since grown to include more than five members. As a result, "anonymous" became the preferred interpretation of the name.
The members of Wu Ming are typically known as "Wu Ming 1", "Wu Ming 2", "Wu Ming 3", "Wu Ming 4", and "Wu Ming 5". Their real names are not secret, though:
The five authors do extensive book tours (which they describe as "almost gratefuldeadesque") and frequently appear in public. However, they refuse to be photographed or filmed by the media. Even on their official website, they do not provide any pictures of themselves. Here is how Wu Ming 1 explained the group's stance in a 2007 interview:
Once the writer becomes a face... it's a cannibalistic jumble: that face appears everywhere, almost always out of context. A photo is witness to my absence; it's a banner of distance and solitude. A photo paralyses me, it freezes my life into an instant, it negates my ability to transform into something else. I become a "character", a stopgap to hurriedly fill a page layout, an instrument that amplifies banality. On the other hand my voice – with its grain, with its accents, with its imprecise diction, its tonalities, rhythms, pauses and vacillations – is witness to a presence even when I'm not there; it brings me close to people and doesn't negate my transformative capacity because its presence is dynamic, alive and trembling even when seemingly still.
In Wu Ming's official biographical page (Italian version), the collective denies rumors they once beat up a press photographer: