First published in Portuguese in 1969, this is the only work by Antonio Jose Saraiva available in English and the only single-volume history devoted primarily to the working of the Portuguese Inquisition, a most lucid and compact survey. "The Marrano Factory" argues that the Portuguese Inquisition s stated intention of extirpating heresies and purifying Portuguese Catholicism was a monumental hoax; the true purpose of the Holy Office was the fabrication rather than the destruction of "Judaizers."

The state of Goa on India's southwest coast was once the capital of the Portuguese-Catholic empire in Asia. When Vasco Da Gama arrived in India in 1498, he mistook Hindus for Christians, but Jesuit missionaries soon declared war on the alleged idolatry of the Hindus. Today, Hindus and Catholics assert their own religious identities, but Hindu village gods and Catholic patron saints attract worship from members of both religious communities. Through fresh readings of early Portuguese sources and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this study traces the history of Hindu-Catholic syncretism in Goa and reveals the complex role of religion at the intersection of colonialism and modernity.

In late 16th-century Goa, despite the Catholic Inquision, the Zarco family holds firm to its Portuguese-Jewish roots. Ti and his sister enjoy their childhood with secret dips into the heady chaos of the Hindu festivals of their beloved cook, Nupi. But as they reach adulthood, the family is torn apart when the father and then the son are imprisoned by the Inquisition. Only someone close to the family could have denounced them. Intent on revenge, Ti is forced finally to face the truth of the betrayal and reassess his most fundamental beliefs.