by Antonio Lobo Antunes · ISBN 9789722036757
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After returning from the war in Angola, António Lobo Antunes writes 'Os Cus de Judas', about his experiences in that country. The novel became a great success, being the first great book about the conflict and independence of Angola and an obligatory historical reference.
In a non-linear and fragmented narrative, Lobo Antunes reveals the existential concerns of a human being, in the indelible experience of a war, which are mixed with memories of childhood and youth in Salazarist Lisbon.
The author uses, for the most part of the novel, the stream of consciousness and the association of ideas, to construct the story and the profile of his narrator-protagonist, a character who, from "a painful learning of agony", sees his life and his values shattered by melancholy. What remains are fragments of memory: the child who visited the zoo with his parents on Sundays, the young man who impassively watches his future being traced by the unquestionable authority of a Salazarist family, the apathetic and frustrated adult in the face of violence that takes away the reins and the meaning of life.
The reader will be face to face with "decay, putrefaction, pestilence and death. Adding rascality, violence and senselessness". For the Portuguese journalist Nuno Barbosa, "Lobo Antunes, giving full expression to a ruthless and rude writing, achieves a precious harmony between the violence of the narrated and the rudeness of the terms used - his words gain, therefore, a much greater credibility, creating a deep link with reality".
The book, which received the Franco-Portuguese prize awarded by the French Embassy in Lisbon, is in its 21st edition in Portugal and has already been sold to more than ten countries such as England, France, Italy, Germany and Sweden.
António Lobo Antunes was a Portuguese novelist and medical doctor. He was awarded the 2000 Austrian State Prize, the 2003 Ovid Prize, the 2005 Jerusalem Prize, the 2007 Camões Prize, and the 2008 Juan Rulfo Prize. Lobo Antunes was repeatedly nominated as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
