Editing Umberto Eco (section)

=== Later novels and writing (2000–2016) ===
[[File:Umberto Eco in his house.JPG|thumb|Eco at his home in 2010]]
[[File:Oliver Mark - Umberto Eco, Milan 2011.jpg|thumb|Umberto Eco photographed by [[Oliver Mark]], Milan 2011]]
''[[Baudolino]]'' was published in 2000. Baudolino is a much-travelled polyglot Piedmontese scholar who saves the Byzantine historian [[Niketas Choniates]] during the sack of Constantinople in the [[Fourth Crusade]]. Claiming to be an accomplished liar, he confides his history, from his childhood as a peasant lad endowed with a vivid imagination, through his role as adopted son of [[Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Frederick Barbarossa]], to his mission to visit the mythical realm of [[Prester John]]. Throughout his retelling, Baudolino brags about his ability to swindle and tell tall tales, leaving the historian (and the reader) unsure of just how much of his story was a lie.

''[[The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana]]'' (2005) is about [[Giambattista Bodoni]], an old bookseller specializing in antiques who emerges from a coma with only some memories to recover his past. Bodoni is pressed to make a very difficult choice, one between his past and his future. He must either abandon his past to live his future or regain his past and sacrifice his future.<ref name=":3" />

''[[The Prague Cemetery]]'', Eco's sixth novel, was published in 2010. It is the story of a secret agent who "weaves plots, conspiracies, intrigues and attacks, and helps determine the historical and political fate of the European Continent". The book is a narrative of the rise of Modern-day [[antisemitism]], by way of the [[Dreyfus affair]], ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' and other important 19th-century events which gave rise to hatred and hostility toward the [[Jews|Jewish people]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Umberto Eco |url=https://timenote.info/en/Umberto-Eco |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250305121855/https://timenote.info/en/Umberto-Eco |archive-date=March 5, 2025 |access-date=March 5, 2025 |website=Timenote}}</ref>

In 2012, Eco and [[Jean-Claude Carrière]] published a book of conversations on the future of information carriers.<ref>{{cite news|last=Clee|first=Nicholas|date=27 May 2012|title=This is Not the End of the Book by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière – review|work=[[The Guardian]]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/27/end-book-eco-carriere-review|access-date=21 February 2016|archive-date=23 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223080124/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/27/end-book-eco-carriere-review|url-status=live}}</ref> Eco criticized social networks, saying for example that "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community&nbsp;... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots."<ref>{{cite web|last=fveltri|date=18 June 2015|title=About idiots and churnalism|url=https://comipi.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/the-invasion-of-the-idiots-and-modern-churnalism/|access-date=23 April 2016|website=News of PR Interest|archive-date=11 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011130504/https://comipi.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/the-invasion-of-the-idiots-and-modern-churnalism/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|date=11 June 2015|title=Umberto Eco: 'Con i social parola a legioni di imbecilli'|url=http://www.lastampa.it/2015/06/10/cultura/eco-con-i-parola-a-legioni-di-imbecilli-XJrvezBN4XOoyo0h98EfiJ/pagina.html|access-date=31 May 2017|website=LaStampa.it|archive-date=28 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170528161917/http://www.lastampa.it/2015/06/10/cultura/eco-con-i-parola-a-legioni-di-imbecilli-XJrvezBN4XOoyo0h98EfiJ/pagina.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

''From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation'' (2014).

''[[Numero Zero]]'' was published in 2015. Set in 1992 and narrated by Colonna, a hack journalist working on a Milan newspaper, it offers a satire of Italy's kickback and bribery culture<ref>Ian Thomson, Evening Standard, 12 November 2015.</ref> as well as, among many things, the legacy of [[fascism]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}