Pessoa An Experimental Life
Pessoa An Experimental Life by Richard Zenith, published by Penguin Publishing Group on August 25, 2022, is a comprehensive biography that delves into the life of the enigmatic Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. Spanning 1,088 pages, this edition presents a detailed exploration of Pessoa’s literary contributions and the complex persona he crafted through his use of heteronyms. Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s life within the broader currents of 20th-century European history, offering insights into his imaginative genius and the cultural landscape of Lisbon.
Readers will find a thorough examination of Pessoa’s unique writing style and the various identities he adopted, which reflect his multifaceted nature. Zenith traces the origins and significance of these heteronyms, revealing how they serve as extensions of Pessoa’s own identity. This biography not only highlights Pessoa’s literary achievements but also paints a vivid picture of Lisbon, the city that shaped his work and life. With its focus on biography and literary criticism, this book is a significant contribution to the understanding of one of modern literature’s most influential figures.
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FINALIST: 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY
A NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021
‘A revelation. Such a revolutionary literary discovery seems unlikely to be on offer again. It’s that good’ Sunday Times
‘A masterpiece of literary biography. Zenith has produced a work in some ways as astonishing as those of Pessoa himself’ John Gray, New Statesman
For many thousands of readers Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet is almost a way of life. Ironic, haunting and melancholy, this completely unclassifiable work is the masterpiece of one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic writers.
Richard Zenith’s Pessoa at last allows us to understand this extraordinary figure. Some eighty-five years after his premature death in Lisbon, where he left over 25,000 manuscript sheets in a wooden trunk, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) can now be celebrated as one of the great modern poets. Setting the story of his life against the nationalistic currents of European history, Zenith charts the heights of Pessoa’s explosive imagination and literary genius.
Much of Pessoa’s charm and strangeness came from his writing under a variety of names that he used not only to conceal his identity but also to write in wildly varied styles with different imagined personalities. Zenith traces the back stories of virtually all of these invented others, called ‘heteronyms’, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself.
Zenith’s monumental work confirms the power of Pessoa’s words to speak prophetically to the disconnectedness of modern life. It is also a wonderful book about Lisbon, the city which Pessoa reinvented and through which his different selves wandered.
‘Definitive and sublime’ New York Times
‘Completely superb and magisterial. Finally, this extraordinary poet gets the great biography he deserves. Unsurpassable’ William Boyd
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