Called "hallucinatory and lyrical" (Publishers Weekly), The Return of
the Caravels -- selected as a New York times Summer Reading title -- is
a powerful indictment of Portuguese colonialism and another literary
tour de force from the pen of Antonio Lobo Antunes, "the greatest living
Portuguese writer" (Vogue). It is set in Lisbon as Portugal's African
colonies gain their independence in the mid-1970s. In a contemporary
response to Camoes's conquest epic The Lusiads, Antunes imagines Vasco
da Gama and other heroes of Portuguese explorations beached amid the
detritus of the empire's collapse. Or is it the modern colonials -- with
their mixed-race heritage and uneasy place in the "fatherland" -- who
have somehow ended up in sixteenth-century Lisbon? As da Gama begins
winning back ownership of Lisbon piece by piece in crooked card games,
four hundred years of Portuguese history mingle -- the caravels dock
next to Iraqi oil tankers, and the slave trade rubs shoulders with the
duty-free shops. The Return of the Caravels is a startling and
uncompromising look at one of Europe's great colonial powers, and how
the era of conquest reshaped not just Portugal but the world. "... the
voice of Nabokov by way of Cortazar, Gogol by way of Dylan." -- Jonathan
Levi, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Antunes has empathy for the
contradictions of human feeling. He is a warm-bloodied writer."--
Michael Pye, The New York Times Book Review "[Antunes] deserves a wide
audience of discerning readers." -- Michael Mewshaw, The Washington Post
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