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

• We started tracking this book on September 9, 2023.
• This book was £1.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 18 times in the past 995 days.
• The current price of this book is £8.99 last checked 57 minutes ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past year.
• The lowest price to date was £1.99 last reached on September 9, 2023.
• This book has been £1.99 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £9.99 last reached on May 9, 2026.
• This book has been £9.99 8 times since we started tracking it.

• Biography & True AccountsArts & LiteratureAuthors
• NonfictionLiterary Criticism

• Publication Date: July 29, 2021
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 1,073 Pages
• File Size: 267 KB