Richard Zenith Bücher

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.

The compass point, which marks the unseen center, does not sing like the beak of the bird that is the center of the song it occupies. However, the compass rotates as if it were moved by wings; and it draws, on paper, the circle that the bird suggests in the air.

Against a backdrop of rural Portuguese poverty, a handful of magical characters are living out their destiny- Jose, a shepherd, who is visited by a devil whispering violent words in his ear; Moises and Elias, Siamese twins joined at the tip of their little fingers; Gabriel, a wise man, who is over one hundred years old; and an unnamed character who sits writing alone in a windowless room. The characters are universal, and they are all at the mercy of fate - their lives are pulled in different directions and sometimes even suffocated and snuffed out ...

Nearly a century after his death, Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) remains an enigmatic figure. Believing he could achieve “more in dreams than Napoleon,” he created numerous alter egos, or “heteronyms,” under which he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Despite his complexity, definitive biographies have been elusive—until renowned translator and scholar Richard Zenith took on the challenge. Initially unknown, Pessoa's legacy transformed dramatically with the discovery of 25,000 unpublished papers in a trunk. Zenith draws from this extensive archive and unpublished family letters, situating Pessoa’s life within the nationalist currents of twentieth-century Europe. He reveals the depths of Pessoa’s imagination and literary genius, tracing the backstories of his heteronyms as projections of himself. A solitary man with a platonic love affair, Pessoa explored sexuality, spiritual truth, and the political turmoil of Portugal through his writings. Zenith also portrays Pessoa’s formative years in Lisbon and Durban, South Africa, his struggles as a translator, and his bohemian friendships, including his correspondence with Ophelia Quieroz. He highlights Pessoa's defense of banned homosexual writers and his opposition to the Portuguese dictator Salazar. In rich prose, Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s posthumous achievements, particularly The Book of Disquiet, affirming the enduring relevance of his work in today’s disc