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"No really, his books are awesome. There’s always some guy—totally damaged by the war … No, not World War II, the Angolan War of Independence … Yeah, Wikipedia it. Anyway, there’s always at least one male character, usually a psychiatrist, totally fucked in the head because of the war, who spends most of the book getting wasted and bitching about everything. War, society, Portugal, women, being alone, his family, his ex’s family… . Yeah, well sure, it’s a bit depressing, but that’s sort of life, you know? Especially when you’ve fought in a meaningless war, which resulted in a crazy-ass coup and years of political instability and class issues … So, yeah, in addition to the endless drinking, most of Antunes’s books consist of one long stream of vitriolic hatred. All conveyed in this strange stream-of-consciousness style in which time is all mixed up, different speakers come and go inside of the character’s head, it’s a bit confusing to figure out what’s really going on, what with the sudden italics and the sense of Everything Happening All at Once, but some of the lines just sing, so even if you’re not into Portuguese history or culture, or endless tirades, or late-modernist experiments, there’s always the poetry …"

Chad Post, “Why Read Antonio Lobo Antunes’ in Quarterly Conversation.