{"product_id":"inquisitors-manual","title":"Inquisitors' Manual","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn international best-seller and the novel that established Antune's reputation in Europe, \u003ci\u003eThe Inquistor's Manual\u003c\/i\u003e is a harrowing indictment of Portuguese fascism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAntóoacute;nio Lobo Antunes is one of the great European literary masters, a writer of whom\u003ci\u003e The Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e has said, \"When Antunes is in full heat . . . he reads like William Faulkner or Céeacute;line.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Inquistors' Manual\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles the decadence not just of a family but of an entire society-a society morally and spiritually vitiated by four decades of totalitarian rule. Senhor Francisco, a once powerful state minister and a personal friend of the Portuguese dictator Salazar, is incapacitated by a stroke, and as he spends his last days in a nursing home in Lisbon, he reviews his life and his loves. His son Jo'o, raised by the housekeeper, grows up to be good-hearted but totally inept, so that his ruthless in-laws easily defraud him of his father's farm. The minister's daughter, Paula, whom he had by the cook and who was raised by a childless widow in another town, is ostracized after the Revolution due to her father's position in Salazar's regime.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe emotional turmoil enveloping Francisco's family finally catches up with him when the Revolution ends the forty-two years of the dictatorship, and the old regime tumbles like a castle of cards. Senhor Francisco, more paranoid than ever, remains a large but empty shadow of his seeming omnipotence. Drawing comparison to \u003ci\u003eThe Sound and the Fury\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMoby-Dick\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Inquistors' Manual\u003c\/i\u003e is a fierce exploration of life under one of the worst dictators of the last century, and a modern classic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Richard Zenith, António Lobo Antunes","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47471332294892,"sku":"9780802140524","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9780802140524.jpg?v=1775240034","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/inquisitors-manual","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}