Backwards Out of the Big World - A Voyage into Portugal

The Portuguese say, 'Once we were so great, now we are so small.' Backwards out of the Big World is a brilliant and surprising look at one of Europe's most extraordinary and little-known countries, by an unusally gifted writer. Paul Hyland arrived in Lisbon by cargo boat, following Henry Fielding. Hyland ascends the Tagus through Portugal's heartland and across the frontier with Spain. He meets contemporary writers and probes the nation's psyche with talks with fishwives, bullfighters, businessmen and gypsies...