About the Book
As a young man Fernando Pessoa wrote 'be plural like the universe'. Staying true to this, he went on to invent over 100 fictional alter-egos, which he called heteronyms.
This philosophical biography navigates Pessoa's early days in Lisbon and South Africa, reveals a philosopher-poet and pioneer of Portuguese modernism, and delves into the birth of Pessoa's heteronymic universe. Bartholomew Ryan describes Pessoa's writings on evolving radical politics, his ventures into esoteric realms, and his expertise in astrology.
The book unravels Pessoa's real and imaginary relationships, and explores his unfinished prose masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet. Pessoa's revolutionary concepts of identity and self-multiplicity have become more widely accessible and relatable today due to their increasing occurrence in modern society. This is a compelling, timely exploration of Pessoa's profound, innovative ideas.
'More than presenting a concise life story of Portugal's most fascinating writer of recent centuries, Bartholomew Ryan draws illuminating connections between the self-described 'poet animated by philosophy' and thinkers as diverse as Lenin, Kierkegaard, Gandhi, Nietzsche, Yeats, Eliot, Heidegger, Magris, Joyce and Clarice Lispector. It's a joyous ride through a wild world of ideas, literary experiments and multiple selves.' -Richard Zenith, author of Pessoa: An Experimental Life
Table of Contents:
Prologue: To Be as Radical as Reality Itself
1 The Early Years: Durban, Lisbon, the World
2 I was a Poet Animated by Philosophy
3 Orpheu and the Birth of Modernism
4 Heteronymy and the Plurality of the Subject
5 Radical Politics and the Fifth Empire
6 The Esoteric Journeys of the Soul
7 Love, Sex, Friendship and Self-Fecundation
8 The Ruin of Disquiet
Epilogue: The Death, Afterlife and Reality of Fernando Pessoa
Chronology
References
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
About the Author :
Bartholomew Ryan is a philosopher, musician, and researcher based at IFILNOVA, New University of Lisbon. His books include the coedited Fernando Pessoa and Philosophy: Countless Lives Inhabit Us.
Review :
"More than presenting a concise life story of Portugal’s most fascinating writer of recent centuries, Bartholomew Ryan draws illuminating connections between the self-described “poet animated by philosophy” and thinkers as diverse as Lenin, Kierkegaard, Gandhi, Nietzsche, Yeats, Eliot, Heidegger, Magris, Joyce and Clarice Lispector. It’s a joyous ride through a wild world of ideas, literary experiments and multiple selves." - Richard Zenith, author of Pessoa: An Experimental Life
"Comprehensive in its cultural reach, penetrating yet always lucid, this critical study unriddles the enigma of Pessoa and gently guides us through his “multifaceted writing universe”. The illustrations place Pessoa in a local context, but more importantly Bartholomew Ryan establishes him, as he deserves, in a modernist priesthood beside James Joyce and T. S. Eliot." - Peter Conrad, author of Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the 20th Century
"Probably the key figure in Portuguese literary modernism, Pessoa’s approach was unique: he invented dozens of different alter egos for himself with different literary styles and interests. As well as an astonishing achievement, the kind of fragmentary identity he pioneered seems particularly apt for our own age of multiple and fractured selves. Part of Reaktion’s Critical Lives series, this shortish book looks like an ideal place to start with Pessoa." - Mathew Lyons, The Broken Compass
"To write a critical life that fully does justice to a figure as complex and multifaceted as Fernando Pessoa is an extremely daunting task. Deeply immersed in Portugal’s problematic early twentieth-century politics and in the emergence of a pan-European modernity, Pessoa’s vast output of mostly unrealized literary projects ranges from poems, political essays and manifestos to astrology charts, automatic writings, and texts on neopaganism, not to mention the swirling assemblage of prose fragments that somehow constitute The Book of Disquiet. Bartholomew Ryan has succeeded brilliantly, achieving what nobody has dared to attempt before, a comprehensive yet concise map in exquisite English of the life and work of this dreamy, fragmented, ruinous creature of the abyss, who wrote into reality the many-headed monster that is the self." - Jonardon Ganeri, Bimal K. Matilal Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto, and author of Fernando Pessoa: Imagination and the Self
