Rui Cardoso Martins
Rui Cardoso Martins (born Portalegre, 1967) is a Portuguese writer. His first novel "E Se Eu Gostasse Muito de Morrer" ("Glad to Die") was published in 2006 and became an instant best seller in Portugal. It narrates the story of "Hanger", a boy who lives in rural Southern Portugal (the "Alentejo") where every other person around him commits suicide. The novel has been translated into English,[1] Hungarian and Spanish.[2]
His second novel, "Deixem Passar o Homem Invisível” (Let the Invisible Man Go Through, Dom Quixote, 2009) narrates the story of a blind man and a child who get washed down the Lisbon sewage system during a flood. It won the top literary Prize in Portugal (the APE/DGLB Grand Prize for Romance and Novella), previously won by the likes of José Saramago and António Lobo Antunes. It also made the shortlist – top 3 – for the SPA (Authors' Society) literary prize in 2009, eventually won by António Lobo Antunes. His third book, "Se Fosse Fácil Era Para os Outros", was published in Portugal by D.Quixote in 2012, and by Leya in Brazil in 2013.[3] He also wrote several short stories, namely "The Progress of Mankind", "Animal Stomach" and "Espelho de Água" (the latter contributing to the first issue of Granta-Portugal).
He is an award-winning reporter and one of the founders of "Público", the most prestigious daily paper in Portugal, where he maintains the weekly column "Will the defendant rise?", for which he has won two awards. As a reporter, he covered the siege of Sarajevo and Mostar, during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war, as well as South Africa's first free elections. As a scriptwriter, he is a founding associate of Produções Fictícias (a pioneering company working on high quality screenwriting for TV). He co-authored "Contra-Informação" (a Portuguese version, in the original format, of Spitting Images), and is also the co-author of several other comedy and drama series, including Sociedade Anónima, nominated at the Venice International TV Festival. For cinema he wrote, among others, the original story and screenplay of the full-length feature Zona J, a huge success in Portugal.
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