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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Luther Blissett/Wu Ming

BioDynamo

13:46 / 25.07.03

The Wu Ming (ex-Luther Blisset) collective finally did what they were supposed to and published Q free for all on the 'net.

Guardian review of Qhere.

The book itself.

The Wu Ming Foundation website. Anti-copyright revolutionary collective identity fiction/agit-prop. Must read.

BioDynamo

14:07 / 25.07.03

Wu Ming on Guardian review:

THE EARLY MARXISTS

Sarah Dunant pretends she has read Q and "reviews" it on The Guardian

[appended by a note by Wu Ming 1]

"..We also recognized a snotty attitude about Italians ("only the Italians can" etc...). Please note that Sarah Dunant, like many members of the British upper-middle class, has moved to Florence and allegedly writes thrillers set in Italy. We never read her books but the tone of this review and some other stuff we found on the Net authorize us to suspect they're based on the usual tiresome clichés: Italians are naive and noisy, funny but touchy, often untrustworthy etc. She probably really likes Italy, but that doesn't mean she likes Italians."

http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/rassegna/sad_guardian.html

The Falcon

14:19 / 11.04.06

I gave this to pater for Xmas, and he says it's good, and now I have a lend. (Which is really the ideal outcome of my book gift-giving, given I normally want to read them myself.) It's by the bedside, but I'm still trudging through Dhalgren, laughably slowly, and rerunning a lot of the comic stores just now.

Sax

14:40 / 11.04.06

Anyone read any of the books from the Bologna-based collective known variously as "Luther Blissett" and "Wu Ming" (which, apparently, is Mandarin for "no name" and widely used by Chinese dissidents)?

Their first novel, Q, won a Guardian award, although I haven't read it yet.

Just started '54, which is out now in paperback, and brings in Trieste revolutionaries, Cary Grant and Italian-American mobsters in an epic story spanning the entire year of, well, 1954.

I must say, it's rather super so far. A must for any aspiring Situationist, I'd have thought.

You can download their books here.

Quantum

18:22 / 13.04.06

Y'know, I had a roleplaying character and a mix tape a few years ago I called wu ming, because I couldn't think of a Chinese name. I was never sure it was correct as I don't speak Mandarin, thank you these Italian situationists! Quelle coincidence.

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