Fernando Pessoa

**Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa** (Lisbon, 13 June 1888 - Lisbon, 30 November 1935), also known as **Fernando Pessoa**, was a Portuguese poet and writer.

Pessoa is considered one of the greatest Portuguese poets. He has been compared to Luís Vaz de Camões.

He was born in Lisbon and lost his father and younger brother when he was just five years old. At the age of seven, he relocated to Durban, South Africa, with his mother. There, the English language he learned would shape his writing. He remained in Durban until he turned seventeen. Pessoa composed poetry and other works as if they were authored by diverse personalities. Each character had their unique life experiences, physical traits, relationships with others, poetic voices, and perspectives. These characters are referred to as "heteronyms." Pessoa created at least 72 of these alternative personas. His three primary poets, for instance, are characterized as follows: "Alberto Caeiro, a simple, rural poet with profound ideas who wrote in free verse; Ricardo Reis, a physician who crafted formal odes inspired by Horace; and Álvaro de Campos, an adventurous naval engineer from London influenced by Walt Whitman and the Italian Futurists." Pessoa passed away from liver disease at the age of 47 in Lisbon. His final recorded words were in English: "I know not what tomorrow will bring."

## Works

- _Antinous: a poem,_ Lisbon: Monteiro & Co., 1918.
- _35 Sonnets,_ Lisbon: Monteiro & Co., 1918.
- _English Poems,_ Lisbon: Olisipo, 1921.
- _Selected Poems,_ tr. Edwin Honig, Swallow Press, 1971.
- _Selected Poems,_ tr. Peter Rickard, University of Texas Press, 1972.
- _The Book of Disquiet,_ (first published in Portugese in 1982; see below).
- _Always Astonished: Selected Prose,_ tr. Edwin Honig, San Francisco, USA: City Lights Books, 1988.
- _Fernando Pessoa: Self-Analysis and Thirty Other Poems,_ tr. George Monteiro, Gavea-Brown Publications, 1989.
- _Message,_ tr. Jonathan Griffin, Menard Press, 1992.
- _The anarchist banker and other Portuguese stories,_ Carcanet Press, 1996.
- _The Keeper of Sheep,_ tr. Edwin Honig & Susan M. Brown, Sheep Meadow, 1997.
- _Poems of Fernando Pessoa,_ tr. Edwin Honig & Susan Brown, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1998.
- _Fernando Pessoa & Co: Selected Poems,_ tr. Richard Zenith, Grove Press, 1999.
- _Selected Poems: with New Supplement,_ tr. Jonathan Griffin, Penguin Classics; 2nd edition, 2000.
- _The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa_ ,tr. by Richard Zenith, New York, USA: Grove Press, 2001.
- _Sheep's Vigil by a Fervent Person: A Translation of Alberto Caeiro/Fernando Pessoa,_ tr. Erin Moure, House of Anansi, 2001.
- _The Education of the Stoic,_ tr. Richard Zenith, Exact Change, 2004.
- _A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems,_ tr. Richard Zenith, Penguin Classics, 2006.
- _A Centenary Pessoa,_ tr. Keith Bosley & L. C. Taylor, Carcanet Press, 2006.
- _Selected English Poems,_ Exeter, UK: Shearsman Books, 2007.
- _The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro,_ tr. Chris Daniels, Exeter, UK: Shearsman Books, 2007.
- _Collected Later Poems of Álvaro de Campos, 1928–1935_ tr. Chris Daniels, Exeter, UK: Shearsman Books, 2009.
- _Forever Someone Else: Selected poems,_ tr. Richard Zenith, Lisbon, Portugal: Assírio & Alvim, 2010.
- _Philosophical Essays: A Critical Edition,_ New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2012.
- _The Transformation Book—or Book of Tasks,_ New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2014.
- _The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro,_ tr. Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari. New Directions, 2020.
- _The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos,_ tr. Patricio Ferrari and Margaret Jull Costa. New Directions, 2023.

## _The Book of Disquiet_ in English

- _The Book of Disquiet_, tr. Alfred Mac Adam (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991.)
- _The Book of Disquiet_, tr. Margaret Jull Costa (London, New York: Serpent's Tail, 1991.)
- _The Book of Disquiet_, tr. Richard Zenith (London: Allen Lane, 2001.)
- _The Book of Disquiet: A Selection_, tr. Iain Watson (London: Quartet Books, 1991.)
- _The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition_, tr. Margaret Jull Costa (New York: New Directions, 2017.)
- _The Book of Disquietude_, tr. Richard Zenith (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1991.)

## Infobox (writer)

- **image**: 216 2310-Fernando-Pessoa.jpg
- **name**: Fernando Pessoa
- **caption**: photographed in 1914
- **birth place**: Lisbon, Portugal
- **death place**: Lisbon, Portugal
- **occupation**: Poet, writer and translator
- **language**: Portuguese literature, Portuguese, English literature, English (bilingual)
- **nationality**: Portuguese people, Portuguese
- **signature**: Assinatura pessoa fernando.jpg