The Book of Disquiet - Tapa dura

When Fernando Pessoa died in 1935 he left behind a trunk containing over 25,000 items a vast collection of poems, fragments, letters, journals. These pieces were ascribed to a variety of writers - the heteronyms or assumed identities Pessoa had created over the course of his extravagant written life. Attributed to the heteronym Bernado Soares, THE BOOK OF DISQUIET is perhaps best described as an 'anti-literature'. Written in exquisite, painful detail, this is a collection of fragments, an 'autobiography of one who never lived'. Richard Zenith has drawn on his own intimate knowledge of the original manuscripts to produce a beautiful and captivating translation of one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was born in Lisbon and brought up in Durban, South Africa. He returned to Lisbon in 1905. A prolific writer, ascribing his work to a variety of personas or heteronyms, Pessoa published little in his lifetime and supported himself by working as a commercial translator. Although acknowledged as an intellectual and a poet, his literary genius went largely unrecognised until after his death.