Raised from the ground

This novel follows the changing fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family - poor, landless peasants who live in Alentejo, a southern province of Portugal known for its vast agricultural estates. The lives of the Mau-Tempos are charted as national and international events rumble on in the background - the coming of the republic in Portugal, the First and Second World Wars and an attempt on the dictator Salazar's life. Yet, nothing really impinges on the farm labourer's lives until the first communist stirrings.