Afonso Cruz

In 2008, Cruz published his first novel, The Flesh of God: The Adventures of Conrado Fortes and Lola Benites, and a year later The Encyclopedia of World Story, which won the Camilo Castelo Branco Grand Prize. In 2011, he released The Books Which Devoured My Father (Maria Rosa Colaço Literary Prize) and The Human Contradiction (SPA/RTP Authors Award). He was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature in 2012 for his novel Kokoschka's Doll. Jesus Christ Drank Beer was considered the Best Portuguese Novel of the Year by TimeOut Lisbon magazine and the Best Novel of 2012 by the readers of the reference newspaper Público. In 2013, he published the novel Where Do Umbrellas End Up (winner of the Portuguese Society for Authors Award). Flowers, published in 2015, won the literary prize Fernando Namora and was praised by critics, with rights being immediately sold to various countries. As an illustrator, he won the 2014 Portuguese National Illustration Award for Capital. As well as writing and illustrating, he is a director of animated films and member of a band called The Soaked Lamb. In 2016, he published the novel Not All Whales Fly and, in 2017, his most ambitious outing, a non-fiction book, Jalan Jalan: A Reading of the World. In 2018, he published his latest novel, The Karenina Principle, and a book for children, How to Cook a Child.