The Author
Caixa de texto: José Rodrigues dos Santos is the bestselling novelist in Portugal. He is the author of four essays and six novels, including Portuguese blockbusters Codex 632, which sold 180 000 copies, The God Formula, 155 000 copies, and The Seventh Seal, 165 000 copies, astonishing sales considering Portugal’s tiny market. His fiction is published or is about to be published in 15 languages. One of his novels, The Island of Darkness, is in the process of being adapted for cinema by one of Portugal’s leading film directors, Leonel Vieira. José is also a journalist and a university lecturer. He works for Portuguese public television, where he presents 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 and Georgia. He has been awarded three times by CNN for his reporting and twice by the Portuguese Press Club. José teaches journalism at Lisbon’s New University and has a Ph. D. on war reporting. His 2006 novel, The God Formula, is a scientific thriller that tells the story of an unknown Einstein manuscript which ends up involved with the Iranian nuclear crisis and the biggest quest of them all: the search for the scientific proof of God’s existence. The novel was published in Italy, Spain, Greece, Brazil and Holland, and its rights have been sold to the USA, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic. José’s next novel, The Seventh Seal, is another thriller based on true information and set in Antarctica, Portugal, Austria, Siberia and Australia. Its subjects are the biggest immediate threats to human civilization: global warming and the end of oil. The novel’s rights have already been sold to Brazil, Greece, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, Romania, Hungary and Thailand. His latest novel, Life in a Breath, has just been released and has already sold 115 000 copies. This is a story set in the 1930s, when Dictator Oliveira Salazar rose to power in Portugal. We see Amélia and Luís, the two main characters, struggling through the hardships of these turbulent years of confrontation between liberal democracies, right-wing nationalism and communist regimes. One of the characters even gets enlisted in the Foreign Legion and finds himself involved in the Spanish Civil War. Life in a Breath is a story of love and friendship, loyalty and treason, crime and politics, happiness and pain. Click here for an extended bio.