Fernando Pessoa: Voices of a Nomadic Soul

by Zbigniew Kotowicz

Yeats, Rilke, Mandelstam, Cavafy ... and the English-speaking world is finally beginning to acknowledge the place of Pessoa among the greatest European poets of the century. Pessoa, born in Lisbon in 1888, died in 1935. He anticipated many of the strategies of later artists by creating various 'heteronyms', and wrote separate and very different bodies of work in and under their own names, in addition to his own. Zbigniew Kotowicz's book is the first comprehensive presentation in the English-speaking world of the artistic and intellectual phenomenon known as Pessoa. The book concludes with Suzette Macedo's complete translation of the long poem, 'The Tobacconist's'.

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harold Bloom described Pessoa "as a fantastic invention (who) surpasses any creation by Borges." With a passion that would embarrass even Kierkegaard, Pessoa took his pseudonyms seriously (he called them "heteronyms"), inventing not only names, but biographies and books of poetry written by his inventions. During his life, he published only a fraction of the poetry and prose penned by his multiple personalities, stashing most of it in a trunk discovered after his death. Sometimes it's unclear who was supposed to have written what. Daimonic possession is hard on executors.

In this short study, Zbigniew Kotowicz provides some insight into the madness – separating the poet from the poets. He's particularly helpful with "Bernardo Soares" – author of The Book of Disquiet, by far my favorite among Pessoa's remains. Pessoa called it "the saddest book in Portugal." Kotowicz says it's "one of the most moving literary testimonies of a tortured twentieth-century soul." For me, it is pure dark comedy, and I can't help but believe it was for Pessoa too. Ennui has never been so exalted; self-torture never so eloquent. That had to feel good.

[Javier Ponce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kotowicz knows what he is talking about! I felt his essays were very poetic, which should be the only way to speak about Pessoa, his heteronyms, his vision of life, and his poetics. This was certainly one of my favorite readings about the Portuguese poet.