Wu Ming - The Solo Novels

The Solo Novels

Starting from 2001, each individual member of Wu Ming also authored one or more "solo" novels. Some of them have been translated into other languages, but not yet in English.

Wu Ming 1 is the author of New Thing (2004), an "unidentified narrative object" blending fiction, journalism and free verse. It is an allegorical tale on free jazz and the 1960s, set in 1967 New York City and constructed around John Coltrane's final days. The French newspaper Le Monde described the book as "a choral novel, an inquiry, and a political jam-session loaded with syncopated poetry".

Wu Ming 2 is the author of Guerra agli umani (2004), a satire of primitivism and survivalism set on the Appennines in an undefined year. The main character and narrator is called Marco, but he nicknames himself "Marco Walden", after Thoreau's Walden. At the beginning of the book, Marco quits his job as a restroom cleaner at a big cemetery, because he wants to leave the city (presumably Bologna, although it remains unnamed), go to the mountains and become a "hunter-gatherer superhero".

Wu Ming 4 is the author of Stella del mattino (2008). The novel is set in 1919 Oxford and centered around T.E. Lawrence suffering writer's block while working on The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Among the characters Lawrence encounters in the book, important roles are played by writers J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and, most notably, Robert Graves. Wu Ming themselves described Stella del mattino as "the best solo novel ever manufactured in our smithy" and "a bridge between our collective and solo novels".

Wu Ming 5 is the author of both Havana Glam (2001) and Free Karma Food (2007). Havana Glam is set in an alternate 1970s world where David Bowie is a communist sympathizer and has a "Cuban period" instead of a "Berlin period". This causes some turmoil in Havana, as the Cuban intelligence suspect the rockstar to be an infiltrator. Free Karma Food describes a future society where all kinds of cattle have been killed by a global pandemic known as "The Great Murrain". Some Italian critics described Wu Ming 5's novels as belonging to the literary sub-genre known as "New Weird". Such inclusion, however, has been questioned in weblogs and social network discussion groups devoted to science-fiction.