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Fernando Pessoa (Critical Lives)

Bartholomew Ryan

$22.00

Publication Date: November 11th, 2024

Publisher:

Reaktion Books

ISBN:

9781789149340

Pages:

224

Available for Preorder

Description

A critical biography of the modernist Portuguese writer.

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 the life, work, and imaginative universe of this modernist pioneer. 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.

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.

Praise for Fernando Pessoa (Critical Lives)

"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'