Pessoa: A Biography (2021) by Richard Zenith

Fernando Pessoa

Book Review

Pessoa: A Biography (2021)

by Richard Zenith

    I heard about Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa via the 1001 Books Project, where his The Book of Disquiet (1982) is one of those quirky titles that sticks with you.  The amazing thing about The Book of Disquiet and its status as a canonical work in translation is that Pessoa died in 1935, and the ORIGINAL edition of The Book of Disquiet wasn't published until 1982.   That is because Pessoa published very little during his lifetime, mostly poetry and essays, but when he died there was an entire trunk full of writing, all jumbled together.  The Book of Disquiet was pieced together over the next half century, and then it was finally published, Fernando Pessoa was acknowledged as a fully canon level writer of international literature.

  It takes your breath away, the whole story, which is why I was so excited for this 1400 page(!) biography of Pessoa by Richard Zenith.  I read this book on my Kindle, and it took me literally months to finish.   What's amazing about this book being 1400 pages is that Pessoa did practically nothing his entire life.  He was raised in Durban South Africa- by far the most interesting thing that ever happened to him- then moved to Lisbon after he graduated high school and literally never left.  He also never had a relationship, may have died a virgin.

  At the same time he lived an extraordinary life of the intellect, creating dozens of "Heteronyms" or literary pen names, which he used to write on an amazing number of topics.  He was very active as a public intellectual- essentially instrumental in bringing concepts like Futurism to Portugal and serving as an important hub for the Portuguese avant guard.  Later in life, he was Alistair Crowley's man in Portugal.  Despite a lifespan that ran from 1888 to 1935 (dead at 47) Pessoa presents as an extraordinarily modern man- post-modern, even, in the deepest, most sophisticated sense of those terms.   It's hard not to compare him with Borges- with whom he shares an aphoristic quality.  Borges, who famously spent his working life in the basement of a Buenos Aires library, seems to share a kinship with Pessoa, and I think eventually Labyrinths and The Book of Disquiet will be considered together.