Fernando Pessoa

by Maria José de Lancastre, Antonio Tabucchi (Foreword)

Genres: Biography

200 pages, Softcover

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fernando Pessoa contained quite a bit beneath his tightly buttoned exterior. In the years leading up to his death he very carefully deposited all his unpublished writings in a big wooden trunk. These were the writings of a constellation of self-invented "heteronyms", which were self-contained and wildly disparate personalities, each with a distinct body of work of his own, and all written by Pessoa himself.

There's an interesting introduction in this little photo-bio of a book by the Italian novelist Antonio Tabucchi in which he puts forth an entertaining theory that even Fernando Pessoa was an invention of Fernando Pessoa. I have heard, and it is certainly true, if Pessoa hadn't existed Borges would have invented him.

In some of the photos in this book Pessoa bears an uncanny resemblance to Peter Sellers, another man with the preternatural ability to lose himself in a constellation of characters, and who because of this ability apparently strayed so far from his original self that he never quite found his way back.

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

as one of the most enigmatic, singular writers of the twentieth century, the great fernando pessoa is surely deserving of a formal, scholarly biography. in english, sadly, there is so little of pessoa's work to go around, and what there is often seems but a bit of puzzle in need of its adjoining pieces. of the translated editions of poetry (and prose) still available in english, most offer but the briefest of biographical sketches of the late portuguese author, usually focusing on his prolific, curious use of heteronyms and the legendary trunk containing some 25,000 pages of his writing.

maria josé de lancastre published uma fotobiografia in 1999 (from which the photographs in this edition are taken), offering a visual exploration of pessoa's life and writings. spanning the forty-seven years from his birth to his passing in 1935, fernando pessoa provides snapshots of the poet, his family, and his lisbon-based career. with a rather illuminating introductory essay by antonio tabucchi (author of dreams of dreams and the last three days of fernando pessoa), this slim volume is an indispensable reference for those intrigued by the pessoan mystique.

there is no clinical case to be unearthed in pessoa's heteronymy, merely a "simple madness," just as all of literature may perhaps be "simple madness." in order to explain pessoa, and perhaps also to neutralize the anxiety that he communicates to us, there has been talk of disorders and traumas, of a lack of affection, of an oedipal complex, and of repressed homosexuality. maybe there is all of this, and maybe there is none of it. but this is not the point, and it is not this that matters. what matters is that, as he himself has told us, "literature, like all art, is the demonstration that life is not enough."

[Flo]

To write a biography, they only need two dates: the date of my birth and the date of my death.
I wonder what those 199 pages are all about.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartbreaking, inspiring, provocative-- and brief.