Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa was one of the most influential and original poets of the 20th century. He was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1888 and spent most of his childhood and adolescence in South Africa, where he learned English and developed a love for literature. He returned to Lisbon in 1905 and pursued a career as a commercial translator, while also writing poetry and prose in Portuguese, English, and French. Pessoa is best known for his invention of heteronyms, or alternative personalities, under which he wrote different styles and genres of poetry. He created more than 70 heteronyms, but the most famous ones are Alberto Caeiro, a simple and naturalistic poet; Álvaro de Campos, a modern and cosmopolitan poet; Ricardo Reis, a classicist and stoic poet; and Bernardo Soares, the author of The Book of Disquiet, a collection of fragmentary prose reflections. Pessoa also wrote under his own name, producing poems that express his philosophical and metaphysical views, such as Mensagem (Message), a symbolic epic about Portugal’s history and destiny. Pessoa died of cirrhosis in 1935, leaving behind a trunk full of unpublished manuscripts that are still being edited and studied today. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language and a major figure of modernism.