António Lobo Antunes belongs to the generation of writers that appeared immediately after the Portuguese Revolution of 1974. Through his distinctive personal style he has established himself as one of the most representative voices of contemporary Portuguese literature. The success of his novels can be confirmed by the frequent reprintings that are almost always sold out. Antunes is also one of the most translated and well-known Portuguese writers abroad; his works have appeared in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Romanian, Spanish, and Swedish translations. He narrates the history of his country as family stories of power and passion. He draws the reader into a web of unrelated lives whose links become clear only progressively, merging the voices and memories of characters into a tragicomic description of a decayed society. Antunes has been consistently nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature.

Antunes was born in...