The colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau in the 1960s and 1970s were Portugal's Vietnam. The novels discussed in this study, written by António Lobo Antunes, Lídia Jorge and Manuel Alegre among others, aroused passionate responses from the reading public and initiated a national debate, otherwise lacking in the contemporary press, with their systematic deconstruction of the rhetoric of patriotism and colonialism of António Salazar's regime. The author's approach is of necessity grounded in postcolonial thought, as these works represent the awakening of a post-imperial conscience in Portuguese literature and society.

ISABEL MOUTINHO is a Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese at La Trobe University, Australia.