Selected Poems

Fernando Pessoa, the great Portuguese poet and prose writer, has become an icon not only in his native Portugal -- where his likeness once adorned a monetary note -- but also in France, where he is revered in much the same way that Whitman is here. Never before has such a comprehensive and beautifully translated edition of his poetry been available in English. Richard Zenith has taken three of Pessoa's major "heteronyms" (the poet's term for his numerous literary alter egos), as well as the poetry Pessoa wrote "as himself", and created a volume of extraordinary emotional depth and poetic precision. With an introduction that throws light on the work and on the elusive man himself, Fernando Pessoa and Co. is an important addition to world literature.