The famous novel “The Name of the Rose” was published in 1980. When a prominent scientist - a semiologist, medievalist, specialist in popular culture - suddenly became the author of a world bestseller, he was suspected of inventing a computer program that generated literary masterpieces. More than thirty years have passed, and Umberto Eco, a recognized master of literary prose, publishes a series of his Harvard lectures, inviting us “behind the scenes,” to where new worlds are being created. Why does Anna Karenina's suicide not leave us indifferent? Can we say that Gregor Samsa and Leopold Bloom “exist”? Where is the line between reality and fiction? The study of a writer's creative arsenal brings unexpectedly close to answers to difficult questions: where novels come from, how they are written, and why they play such an important role in our lives.