Francisco Santos

He was honored by the Angolan Olympic Committee in 2014, for being one of the first Angolan Olympic ambassadors.

He loves experiencing new techniques and ideas in Art Painting, being strongly influenced by the African art and by the work of Salvador Dalí. His interest by the painting avenged until 1986, time in that personal problems caused to stop having started again painting in the year of 2002.

Noticeable Militant of the Youth of the Party (JMPLA) abandoned the politics when he moved to Portugal in 1986. In Portugal, began a career as a musician under the name of Francis Riba, having created several musical groups, being the better known, the psychedelic rock band ZEM.

Graduated in the Soviet Union, in 1986, in Chemical Engineering, where he frequented also the courses of "Scientific Drawing" and "Creative Thought in Post-modernism". In Portugal, graduated in Data Processing, Systems Engineering and Programming. He frequented also the Courses of “Improvement in Painting Techniques for Oil Portraits”, promoted by the Fine Art-Painter Master Almaia, “Photograph and Graphic Design”, from IADE (Institute of Visual Arts, Design and Marketing), “Aesthetics and Theories of the Contemporary Art" and "Art Painting and Visual intervention”, from SNBA (National Society of Fine Arts).

From 1982 to 1999 he was involved in several musical and theatrical projects as a technician, musician, producer and director, writing several adaptations and two original pieces.

As a sportsman represented Angola in swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics (Men's 100 m Breaststroke and Men's 4 × 100 m Medley Relay).

He also represented his country in other international games, including the Algiers 1978 All-Africa Games, the Moscow 1979 Seventh USSR Summer Spartakiade and the Mexico 1979 Summer Universiade.

He detached himself widely in sports, obtaining several titles of National Champion, in Swimming (consecutively from 1972 to 1980) and Chess (1977 and 1979). He also represented is nation abroad several times, being the last time in the 1980 Summer Olympics (Moscow).

Francisco José Ribeiro Lopes dos Santos, known mainly as Francisco Santos (born 17 May 1962 in Luanda, Angola) is an Angolan/Portuguese multi-talent artist with many names and faces. As Francisco Lopes Santos he is likely to be known as a swimmer. Art enthusiasts may know him as the visual artist Xesko, lovers of poetry as Elias Karipande, fantasy and science fiction fans as Alan J. Banta. As a writer, published in English and Portuguese.

Xesko's parents (who were Portuguese) had immigrated to Angola in 1959, and he grew up immersed in the African quarters (musseques) of Luanda.

By other side, the heteronym Elias Karipande, was born in 1958 in Karipande, a village of Alto Zambeze in Moxico, Angola. Countryman, having only attended primary school, enroll the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) in 1977 after the killing of their parents by militants of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Born poet, his poetry reflects the heroic spirit of the time. According to Francisco Santos, this heteronym, appears for the necessity of creating a soul of pure nationalism.

The heteronym Alan J. Banta is described as a civil engineer, born in 1952 in Kakamas, a village located in the Northern Cape, South Africa but living and working in Angola. After independence, in 1975, remained in the country, for he considers his true home. This heteronym, emerges as a prolific writer of fantasy and science fiction, because of their South African origins and English education, is tending to express in a very classical way. According to Francisco Santos, Alan J. Banta, appears for the necessity of the author has in distancing his student's life from his fantasies.