Fernando Pessoa

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was born in Lisbon but received an English secondary school education in South Africa. He returned to Lisbon at age 17 years, gradually involving himself with the avant garde literary circles of Portugal. Pessoa wrote a great deal of highly original poetry and prose, but was able to publish little during his lifetime. He was hardly known outside the literary vanguard of Lisbon. The end of his life was marked by a tragic isolation. Pessoa’s remarkable fame came posthumously; today many in Portugal and Brazil regard him as the premier poet of the Portuguese language.