Ana Cristina Silva is a Portuguese psychologist and university lecturer, specialising in early childhood reading and writing development.
Ana Cristina Conceição da Silva was born in 1964 in Vila Franca de Xira, just north of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.
Following on from her doctorate, she researches in the field of cognitive psychology and early acquisition of written language and has published technical works in peer-reviewed journals on this topic.
From 2008, when she published As Fogueiras da Inquisição (The Bonfires of the Inquisition), she began to concentrate on historical novels.
She was shortlisted three times for the Fernando Namora prize before finally winning it in 2017 for A Noite Não é Eterna.