Cinco mil vidas

Because to produce a work comparable to that still-singular first novel — not to mention its six successors (...)— you needed to be Umberto. That is, impossibly learned. Indefatigably hardworking. Singularly modest and self-critical. Uniquely open to people and culture high, low, and middle. Quick to laugh and joke. Wise to the importance of entertaining readers — with puns, plot, playful Latin, lighthearted examples, exotic hypotheticals — while guiding them.