The Lisbon Book Fair, Lisbon
Saturday 25 May 4pm WEST
Should Literature Be Political?
Keynote by: José Rodrigues dos Santos. With Rute Pinheiro Coelho.
Author Biography:
José Rodrigues dos Santos is the bestselling novelist in Portugal and his fiction is published or is about to be published in 20 languages. He is the author of five essays and ten novels, including Portuguese blockbusters Codex and The Einstein Enigma, both long listed for the 2010 and 2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (respectively). His novel The Wrath of God won the 2009 Porto Literary Club Award. His overall sales are above 1.5 million books, astonishing figures considering Portugal’s tiny market. He was elected by readers the 2012 and 2013 Reader’s Digest Trusted Brand Novelist of Portugal.
José is also a journalist and a university lecturer at Lisbon’s New University. He works for Portuguese public television, where he presents RTP’s Evening News. José has a PhD in war reporting and as a reporter has covered wars around the globe, including Angola, East Timor, South Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Lebanon, Georgia and Libya. He has been awarded three times by CNN for his reporting and twice by the Portuguese Press Club.
Rute Pinheiro Coelho graduated in Law at the Faculdade de Classica da Universidade de Lisboa. Although currently devoting her time to advocacy (civil rights, commerical, employment and criminal), she has always been dedicated to writing. Rute published her first articles in the weekly supplement of the Diario de Noticias, DNJOVEM, and won some ‘young writer’ literary prizes. The theme of Freemasons was something that captivated her early and is something to which has been devoting much attention, not only for its latent symbolism but also for its influence on political life. O Inmigo Invisivel is her first romance novel and she has already started to write her second, to be published in 2014.