José Luís Peixoto

Born in 1974, José Luis Peixoto is one of Portugal's most acclaimed and bestselling young novelists. He is three-times a winner of the Jovens Criadores Prize and in 2001 he won the José Saramago Prize with his novel Blank Gaze. He is the author of several works of fiction and poetry, and is praised around the world for his fresh, unique and moving style of storytelling.

Blank Gaze was his first novel published in English and was selected by the Financial Times as one of their best books of 2007. The Piano Cemetary followed in English at the end of 2010, and Livro, which went immediately to the top of the bestseller lists in Portugal upon publication in September 2010, is currently in translation.

Peixoto also teaches languages and contemporary literature and is a journalist and literary critic.