Posted on 23 November 2024.
As a young man Fernando Pessoa aspired to, as he put it, “be plural like the universe.” He would fulfill this desire by inventing over one hundred fictional alter-egos which he called heteronyms. Beginning with Pessoa’s early days in Portugal, this philosophical biography explores this modernist pioneer’s life, work, and imaginative universe. Bartholomew Ryan offers a detailed overview of Pessoa’s writings on radical politics, his ventures into esoteric realms, and his expertise in astrology. Along the way, Ryan unravels Pessoa’s real and literary relationships and explores his unfinished prose masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet. 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’
“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’
“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, author of ‘Fernando Pessoa: Imagination and the Self
About the Autor
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.
Book Review
“I think therefore I am not” by Fiona O’Connor – Morning Star
Book Details
Title: Fernando Pessoa
Author: Bartholomew Ryan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Series: Critical Lives
Publication Date: November 22, 2024
Language: English
Paperback: 224pp
Available @ Amazon.com
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