Manituana is the third of Wu Ming's collectively authored novels. It was written in the 2003–07 period and published in Italy in 2007. It is the first episode of an 18th-century pan-Atlantic trilogy which the authors call "the Atlantic Triptych". All novels will be set in the 1770s, all across the Atlantic Ocean (North America, Europe, the West Indies and Africa), before and during the American Revolution.
In the springtime of 2007, Manituana reached No. 4 in the Italian best-seller charts The English translation was published in the UK and the US by Verso Books in the Fall of 2009.
In an entry on their weblog, Wu Ming wrote that
Manituana was written between 2003 and 2007, and it soaked up all the tensions of that period: S11, the Neoconservative hegemony on US foreign policy, the lies on Saddam allegedly keeping weapons of mass destruction hidden in the desert, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush winning his second term thanks to the Christian right in 2004, Silvio Burlesquoni conquering the hearts and minds of the majority of Italians etc.
The novel is set in the years 1775–1783 in New York's Mohawk Valley, Quebec and London (UK). Among the many real historical chapters that populate the book, the most important ones are Joseph Brant, war chief of the Mohawk nation, and Molly Brant, a matron of the Wolf clan in the Iroquois Six Nations.
In Italy Manituana was awarded the Premio Sergio Leone 2007 and the Premio Emilio Salgari 2008. In November 2010 it was nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Manituana was published in English in October 2009, by Verso Books.
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