Portugal

Phil Mailer was born in Dublin Ireland in 1946 and is a resident of Ireland and Portugal. After living in London where he was on the fringes of the King Mob group, he went to Portugal in 1973 and actively participated in the events following the Carnation Revolution of April, 1974. He was an editor of the newspaper Combate and managed a bookshop, Contra A Corrente, in Lisbon with other Portuguese revolutionaries. He has been a long-time translator from Portuguese and has translated the song lyrics and poems of José Afonso (whose song "Grandola" was a signal for the revolution) into English.

This is the story of the political revolution in Portugal between April 25, 1974, and November 25, 1975, as seen and felt by a deeply committed participant. After the military coup in Portugal on April 25, 1974, the overthrow of almost 50 years of fascist rule, and the end of three colonial wars, there followed a year and a half of intense, democratic social transformation that challenged every aspect of Portuguese society. What started as a military coup turned into a profound attempt at social change from the bottom up and became headlines on a daily basis in the world media. This personal history depicts the hopes, the tremendous enthusiasm, boundless energy, total commitment, released power, and revolutionary innocence of thousands of ordinary people taking a hand in the remolding of their lives. It does so against the background of an economic and social reality that placed limits on what could be done.