The Inquisitors’ Manual (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: António Lobo Antunes
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The twentieth century
- Setting: Portugal
- Principal Characters: Senhor Francisco, Dona Isabel, João, Paula, Tatina
- Genres: Long fiction, Translation, Novel
- Subjects: Parents and children, Twentieth century, Mental illness, Obsession, Fathers, Politicians, Domestic work or workers, Portugal or Portuguese people
- Locales: Portugal
António Lobo Antunes constructs his eleventh novel, The Inquisitor’s Manual, around the eighty-year meteoric rise of an aristocratic family during the regime of Portugal’s Fascist dictator António de Oliveira Salazar and its decline after the bloodless revolution of 1974. Central to this dysfunctional family is its patriarch, Senhor Francisco, a powerful cabinet minister in Salazar’s brutal government. The master of Palmela, a large farming estate, is obeyed by his servants without question, as he is by everyone else in Lisbon. There are not words strong enough to...
[The entire page is 1983 words long]
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