| Intro | Journalist, writer |
| Known for | My Father’s Wives, Creole, Rainy Season, The Book of Chameleons |
| A.K.A. | Jose Eduardo Agualusa |
| Is |
Writer Journalist |
| From | Angola |
| Type |
Journalism Literature |
| Gender | male |
| Birth |
13 December 1960, Huambo, Angola |
| Age | 60 years |
| Star sign | Sagittarius |
José Eduardo Agualusa Alves da Cunha (born December 13, 1960) is an Angolan journalist and writer of Portuguese and Brazilian descent. He studied agronomy and silviculture in Lisbon, Portugal. Currently he resides in the Island of Mozambique, working as a writer and journalist. He also has been working to establish a public library on the island.
Agualusa writes predominantly in his native language, Portuguese. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages, most notably into English by translator Daniel Hahn, a frequent collaborator of his. Much of his writing focuses on the history of Angola.
He has seen some success in English-speaking literary circles, most notaby for A General Theory of Oblivion. That novel, written in 2012 and translated in 2015, was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, and was the recipient of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award.
Criticism and interpretation
Agualusa’s work was described by Ana Mafalda Leite as sometimes providing “a link between history and fiction, between the account of past events and the description of what might have been possible.” The critic continues, “The author tries…to capture the moment in which history becomes literature, to illustrate how literary imagination takes precedence over the historical by means of the fantastic and an oneiric vision of life.” Her assessment of the author’s skills is as follows: “Agualusa gives evidence not just of solid historical research but also of the literary talent which brings these characters to life.”
Awards
In June 2017, Agualusa, alongside Daniel Hahn, his translator, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award for his novel A General Theory of Oblivion. Agualusa’s work beat a shortlist of ten titles from around the world, including those penned by literary luminaries such as Irish author Anne Enright, to claim the €100,000 prize. Agualusa was awarded €75,000 personally, as the translator, Daniel Hahn, was entitled to a €25,000 share of the prize money.
Nação Crioula (1997) was awarded the RTP Great Literary Prize.
The Book of Chameleons (2006) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007. He is the first African writer to win the award since its inception in 1990.
Agualusa benefited from three literary grants: the first awarded by the Portuguese Centro Nacional de Cultura in 1997 to write Nação Crioula (Creole); the second given in the year 2000 by the Portuguese Fundação Oriente allowing him to visit Goa, India, for three months which resulted in Um estranho em Goa; the third, in 2001, was prestiged by the German Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst. Thanks to that grant, he lived one year in Berlin, where he wrote O Ano em que Zumbi Tomou o Rio. In 2009, he was invited by the Dutch Residency for Writers in Amsterdam, where he wrote Barroco Tropical.