Dario Fo, the Italian playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, has said he wants to run for the office of mayor in Milan, his home city, next year. "We must hold primary elections to choose the center-left candidate for mayor of Milan," Fo said, according to the BBC. He added that he wanted to help people "get our city back" from conservative Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and current Milan mayor Gabriele Albertini. "In Milan, we can fight a good battle to remove the right. Winning here would have an enormous significance. After Berlusconi, a center-left victory would be a breath of fresh air."

Fo is a well-known advocate of left-wing causes, and most of his plays have espoused his political views. His most recent play was the anti-Berlusconi political satire The Two-Headed Anomaly.

A playwright being elected to high political office is not without precedent in Europe. Václav Havel put down his pen to take up office as president of the then-new Czech Republic (part of the former Czechoslovakia) in 1993. He served until 2003.