The Author
José Rodrigues dos Santos is the bestselling novelist in Portugal. He is the author of
seven essays and
twenty-three
novels, including Portuguese blockbusters
Codex 632, which sold
217 000 copies,
The Einstein Enigma,
205 000
copies,
The Seventh Seal,
207 000 copies, and
The Wrath of God,
200 000 copies
in Portugal. His worldwide sales exceed 3 million copies, with number one bestselling books in multiple countries.
José’s fiction is published or is about to be published in 20 languages. His novels The Wrath of God won the 2009 Porto Literary Club Award, The Devil's Hand won the 2012 Best Novel Award of Portal da Literatura, and The Governor's Lover won the 2018 Bertrand Best Novel Award. His other novels, Codex 632 and The Einstein Enigma, were longlisted for the 2010 and 2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
José is also a journalist and for 25 years a university professor. He works for Portuguese public television, where he presents Telejornal, RTP’s Evening News. As a reporter he has covered wars around the globe, including Angola, East Timor, South Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Lebanon, Georgia Libya and the Iraqi war on ISIS. His last assignment was the 2022 war in the Ukraine. He has been awarded three times by CNN for his reporting and twice by the Portuguese Press Club.
José has a Ph. D. in war reporting.
He is considered by readers Portugal’s best contemporary writer, according to opinion polls by the Reader's Digest Trusted Brand Novelist of Portugal and the 5 Star Literary Personality of Portugal.
His latest novel,
The
Garden of Animals With Soul,
has just been released and has already sold 60 000 copies. A man is killed in Lisbon’s Oceanarium Park and the police suspects of Maria Flor. In order to prove her innocence, her husband,
Tomás Noronha, has to find the real author of the crime. This leads him to the victim’s secretive project – and to the mysteries within Hieronymus Bosch’s most esoteric painting. At the end of the quest lies one of Nature’s most wonderful secrets: the intelligence,
the emotions and the consciousness of animals. Based on the latest scientific research on ethology, José Rodrigues dos Santos sets us before the human nature of animals – and Humankind’s darkest face.
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