Commissioned by the Ellipse Foundation, a member of the FACE Association (Foundation of Arts for a Contemporary Europe), Rui Cardoso Martins, a renowned Portuguese author, drew his inspiration from Franz Kafka's short story "Investigations of a Dog" (1922) to write "Animal Stomach." This short story also echoes the artworks, which are reproduced in the book, by the 36 international artists of the touring exhibition "Investigations of a Dog" organized by FACE in 2009–2011. Four other short stories—especially written for the project by Aristide Antonas, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Emmanuelle Pagano, and Tiziano Scarpa—and an exhibition catalogue are published simultaneously.
See also FACE – Investigations of a Dog (the exhibition catalogue, in which Rui Cardoso Martins' short story is translated into English).
Rui Cardoso Martins (*1967) is a Portuguese writer, and a reporter for the daily newspaper "Público," as well as a screenplay writer for film and television. He has written the novels "E se eu gostasse muito de morrer" (published by D. Quixote, translated into Spanish and Hungarian) and "Deixem passar o homem invisível," and has published several short stories in literary magazines. He recently won the Grand Prize of Romance and Novel awarded by the Portuguese Association of Writers.
