Authors

Portuguese · 1888–1935

Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa is the supreme Portuguese-language modernist poet, whose work under multiple 'heteronyms' — fully-developed alternative poet-personalities with distinct biographies, styles, and worldviews — constitutes one of the most extraordinary experiments in twentieth-century literature. Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos are the three major heteronyms, each a complete poet in himself. Pessoa lived quietly in Lisbon as a commercial translator, publishing very little in his lifetime; his trunk of manuscripts, discovered after his death, revealed the full scope of his achievement.