Umberto Eco (born 1932) is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1980 historical mystery novel The Name of the Rose, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. He has since written other novels, including Foucault's Pendulum) and The Island of the Day Before. His novel The Prague Cemetery, released in 2010, was a best-seller.