'I would prefer not to': The Private Life of a Melancholic Dictator in Salazar na intimidade (1954)

Abstract

In 1952, Éditions Grasset published Vacances avec Salazar, a book of interviews with the Portuguese dictator by the French journalist and writer Christine Garnier. It was illustrated by the photographer António Rosa Casaco, who was also a member of the regime's political police. The aim of the book was to promote the figure of Salazar at home and abroad, focusing on some little-known aspects of his life. In 1954, António Rosa Casaco's reportage was republished in a photobook entitled Salazar na intimidade, in which the discourse relied heavily on the photographs. This article aims to analyse the portrait of the Portuguese dictator offered by both books, which has come to be described as an 'anti-image': rather than a heroic and determined character, the leader appears as a solitary, melancholic and ambiguous individual, who has sacrificed himself to serve his country.