On the basis of a reading of José Cardoso Pires s novel Balada da praia dos cães, written in 1982, I try to understand the factors that led to Oliveira Salazar s dictatorship in Portugal in the twentieth century. Going beyond a literary interpretation of the novel, I look into the reasons why the author wrote a novel extremely marked by a culture of so many years of censorship. The history, the culture, the politics, the active representation and stance of the Portuguese intellectual are discussed. The revelation and questioning of the ways how history was transmitted in the Salazarist era, Pires s rewriting of the history of the dictatorship through a specific temporal and thematic framing (a crime that took place in 1960), the subtle marks of the 1974 revolution in the novel are essential elements for an understanding of current Portuguese culture. These traits were observed in the novel to raise the question that led to the need to look into not just a novel, but an entire culture long marked by censorship and, finally, to view literature as an instrument for revolution and the attainment of freedom of expression.