José Rodrigues dos Santos is a bestselling author, journalist, and university lecturer from Portugal. He was born on April 1, 1964, in Beira, Mozambique. Santos has written five essays and eight novels, with his books selling over one million copies in Portugal alone, a remarkable feat considering the country's small market. His fiction has been published in 17 languages and has won several awards.\n \nSantos's novels have been very successful in his home country. "Codex 632" sold 192,000 copies, "The Einstein Enigma" sold 178,000 copies, "The Seventh Seal" sold 190,000 copies, and "The Wrath of God" sold 176,000 copies. His books' success has led to some of them being adapted for the screen, including "The Island of Darkness," which is being adapted by one of Portugal's leading film directors, Leonel Vieira.
In addition to his work as a novelist, Santos is a respected journalist and university lecturer. He works for Portuguese public television, where he presents RTP's Evening News. As a reporter, he has covered wars around the world, including Angola, East Timor, South Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Lebanon, and Georgia. He has won several awards for his reporting, including three times from CNN and twice from the Portuguese Press Club.\n \nSantos also teaches journalism at Lisbon's New University and has a Ph.D. in war reporting. His journalistic work has also been recognized with awards, such as the Contributor Achievement Award in 2000, which is equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in television journalism. Santos's novel "The Wrath of God" won the 2009 Porto Literary Club Award, and "The Devil's Hand" won the best novel award from the Portal de Literatura in 2012. His novels "Codex 632" and "The Einstein Enigma" were also longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2010 and 2012, respectively.