Umberto Eco Interview: Advice to the Young

Best-selling Italian novelist Umberto Eco here advises aspiring writers not to take themselves too seriously, but to go step by step and remember that: “You’re 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration.”

If you start off thinking that you’re a true genius and that you’ll be receiving the Nobel Prize any moment, you have a problem: “That kills every literary career.”

Umberto Eco was interviewed in his apartment in Milan by Tonny Vorm in May 2015.

Camera: Klaus Elmer
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015

Supported by Nordea-fonden

[athenassigil]

Love this man and his fierce, yet playful intellect. RIP

[SanjanaChoudhary-ofux]

Who is here after 'the interview ' class 12th (ncert)

[barbfrmsf]

May he rest in peace thanks for sharing your talent with us

[kathrynoneill]

6-7 years for a book - no wonder Name of the Rose is one of the best novels ever!

[hartia]

I carry a copy of Travels in Hyperreality with me everywhere. Those Stories and essays are witty and inspirational like no one but a true master of the romantic language could produce.
Un titan moderno. EPD Umberto Eco

[borveriesozlouv]

amazing words from amazing novelist :-)

[dorianphilotheates]

No one should publish anything before the age of eighty-four — unless they fought in a war, survived a real famine, or received a sincere compliment from their mother-in-law...or all of the above.

[ApollonianShy]

I miss him... i wish i had this opportunity to meet him... but was too young... just 16 (for my late bloom perioud is 2 young)

[ggk]

This advice is generally taken poorly by young people who see it as condescending and limiting them. But the context he gives adds much more depth in a simple example of the general in the military.
Don't look to be brilliant immediately.

[nuraful]

you are amazing..thank you for all master!

[MeltonECartes]

I hate when people say "books don't make money." That's true for an enormous amount of them. But who can afford 6-7 years working on ONE book?!? How?

[brentwpg]

My grand father always told me you have to crawl through the mud before you become a general

[LutherAllen-jy]

YEAH UMBERTO, I TAKE THE BABYSITTING JOB! SHIT!

[CaptainPilipinas]

meanwhile, those Hig (for an example) Fanboys are Blindly Ignoring those like even your own share of exampled warnings, Eco....

Tragically to this Day.