about the author

Fernando Pessoa was born in 1888, and died in 1935. He spent his life in South Africa, Portugal, and England. Most noteworthy is his employment of heteronyms, or rather, highly elaborated pseudonyms. Pessoa attributed his poems to more than eighty imagined personas. These personas, or heteronyms, interacted with one another, as teachers, friends, critics, etc., and each possessed a unique voice.