Warning to the Crocodiles

Book excerpt: Set in the aftermath of the “Carnation Revolution” of April 25, 1974, Antonio Lobo Antunes’s Warning to the Crocodiles is a fragmented narrative of the violent tensions resulting from major political changes in Portugal. Told through the memories of four women who spend their days fashioning homemade explosives and participating in the kidnap and torture of communists, the novel details the clandestine activities of an extreme right-wing Salazarist faction resisting the country’s new embrace of democracy. Warning to the Crocodiles (Exortação aos Crocodilos) has won: - Best Novel by the Portuguese Writers Association (Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores) (1999) - The D. Dinis Prize of the Casa de Mateus Foundation (Prémio D. Dinis da Fundação Casa de Mateus) (1999) - The Austrian State Literature Prize (Prémio de Literatura Europeia do Estado Austríaco) (2000)