Umberto Eco is an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic. He is the author of several best-selling novels, including The Name of the Rose(1983), Foucault's Pendulum (1989), The Island of the Day Before (1995), Baudolino (2001), and The Prague Cemetery (2011). His collections of essays include Travels in Hyperreality (1986), Kant and the Platypus (1999), Serendipities (1998), Five Moral Pieces (2001), and On Literature (2004). He has also written academic texts and children's books.
Jean-Claude Carriere is one of France's most distinguished writers. He received the 1972 Prix Goncourt for his novel L'Epervier de Maheux. His other works include the historical drama The Controversy of Valladolid (2005) and the novel Please, Mr. Einstein (2006). With the English director Peter Brook, Carriere adapted the Indian epic poem The Mahabharata for the stage in 1987. Carriere has collaborated with many film directors, including Jacques Tati, Milos Forman, Luis Bunuel, and Jean-Luc Godard. He wrote the screenplays for The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), and The Tin Drum (1979), among many others.