Abstract
Teolinda Gersão's second novel Landscape with a Woman and the Sea in the Background (Paisagem com mulher e mar ao fundo, 1982) is set in a specific historical period of Portuguese history. Links to overseas wars, descriptions of specific manifestations of political repression in everyday life and a negative figure called O.S. (a name identical with the initials of dictator Oliveira de Salazar), leave no doubt as to where and when the story takes place, although there is not a single date or geographical name in the novel.
The scene is two different worlds that use different languages even though they speak the same language. It is a public and private world, where only in the latter words and things have the original meaning without the filter of censorship.