THE CHRONICLES OF MIGUEL ESTEVES CARDOSO AND OF ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES: LITERARY INSIGHTS INTO CONTEMPORAY PORTUGAL

Abstract

The essay presented here results from the crossing of two contemporary Portuguese authors, Miguel Esteves Cardoso (1955) and António Lobo Antunes (1942), who, in their chronicles written between the 80s and 90s of the last century, reflect on the historical moment and the changes in Portuguese society.

Here we understand the chronicle as a genre between journalism, literature and historiography. Initially published in leading Portuguese newspapers (Expresso, O Independente and Público), the texts we will discuss were so well received that they were soon afterwards collected and published in books, which have been the subject of successive re-editions.

Writing under very different styles - Miguel Esteves Cardoso is an opinion writer, while António Lobo Antunes is a fiction writer - both took the Portugal of the 1980s and 1990s as the theme and setting for their chronicles, presenting a portrait of Portugal in a crisis of identity, in the aftermath of the loss of the colonies, but seeking a new collective personality, at a time when a geopolitical and economic reality was imposed by the entry into the EEC (1986).