Foreign books in Portugal and the discourse of censorship in the 1950s

This paper is part of a larger project dealing with translation and censorship during the Portuguese dictatorship. As regards the 1950s, we start with some historical and political information about the decade (known as “the lead years”), followed by a description of the members and the procedures of the Censoring Commission, in collaboration with the political police and the post office. Global information about the books read by the Commission is also given. The main goal of the paper is to analyze speech regularities in the discourse of the censors, which gives a vivid idea of the prevailing ideological values of the regime, especially regarding propaganda, sexual morality, philosophical attitudes (speculation, realism) and the democratic access to books. These were the main fields where books were banned.