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Umberto Eco is a literary master. The bestselling author of The Name of the Rose spins prose at once compelling and complex, full of facts, twists, and details born of scholarship in philosophy, medievalism, and semiotics. His latest novel, The Prague Cemetery, summons a world of assassination and intrigue and serves up a conspiracy theory rooted in 19th-century history, inspired by an era Eco calls "full of monstrous and mysterious events." All of the characters, except its main one, really existed. It poses the question, what if every conspiracy, in a world full of conspiracies, were connected by a single, evil genius, who turned modern history into a massive diatribe that still governs how we think? Eco reads from his new book and discusses his work with Chicago Tribune cultural critic Julia Keller.

This program is generously underwritten by Lois and Harrison Steans and is presented in partnership with the Chicago Tribune.