La satira del tiranno: il Dinossauro Excelentíssimo di José Cardoso Pires

Dinossauro Excelentissimo, by José Cardoso Pires, is a caricature of the dictatorial regime of Antonio Oliveira Salazar, who ruled Portugal from 1933 to 1974. It reproduces it in a parodic, but also satirical, humorous and critical manner, presenting itself as a children's fable. This novel/fable stages the complex relationship between language and the authoritarian and paternalistic state constitution that characterised the Salazarist regime. It is a dialogic novel that aims to denounce the monological discourse produced and imposed by the dictatorial establishment. A polyphonic and carnivalesque text that can be approached with the Bachtinian definition of the 'Menippean novel', a strand of European, dialogic and carnivalesque literature that introduces the logic of discordance and contrast. A work that also fits into a precise satirical tradition of Portuguese literature.