Wu Ming

Wu Ming
Born	Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Luca Di Meo, Federico Guglielmi, Riccardo Pedrini
Occupation	Writer
Language	Italian
Nationality	Italian
Genre	Historical novel, short story, essay
Literary movement	New Italian Epic
Notable works	Q, 54, Manituana

Wu Ming (extended name: Wu Ming Foundation) 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" (simplified Chinese: 无名; traditional Chinese: 無名; pinyin: wúmíng) or, with a different tone on the first syllable, "five people" (Chinese: 五名; pinyin: wǔ míng), 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" (simplified Chinese: 无名天地之始; traditional Chinese: 無名天地之始; pinyin: wúmíng tiāndì zhī shǐ).

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