Description
Book SynopsisNew York Times • Times Critics Top Books of 2021
New York Times Book Review • Editors’ Choice
Kirkus Reviews • Best Nonfiction of the Year
Like Richard Ellmann’s
James Joyce, Richard Zenith’s
Pessoa immortalizes the life of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.
Trade Review"Mammoth, definitive and sublime.... An account of a life that plucks at the very borders and burdens of the notion of a self." -- Parul Sehgal - New York Times
"Monumental…. [Pessoa’s writing] was a city that needed a guide. Thanks to Zenith, it has one at last." -- Benjamin Moser - New York Times Book Review
"An incredibly good book if you’re interested in Pessoa, but also if you’re interested in history and in Portugal in the 19th century... It’s an essential read." -- Karl Ove Knausgård
"The success of Pessoa lies in Zenith’s panoramic approach and his skill in setting Pessoa’s orderly, insular way of life against the riotous backdrop of the early twentieth century…. [and in] elegant, engaging prose that has the propulsive energy of a historical novel fueled by the occasional jolt of surrealism." -- Anahid Nersessian - New York Review of Books
"Rich and illuminating... Zenith is consistently informed, witty, and attuned to surprising and satisfying connections." -- Damion Searls - The New Republic
"Knockout… wholly compelling." -- Boyd Tonkin, Spectator, Books of the Year
"One of the great literary biographies of the century… A magisterial account of the life of the deliciously mad Fernando Pessoa, who wrote books and stories under some 60 pseudonyms." -- Simon Winchester, New Statesman, Books of the Year
"Superb… the last word on this enigmatic modern figure: the TS Eliot of Portuguese 20th-century literature." -- William Boyd, New Statesman, Books of the Year
"Monumental... To do justice to the magnitude and complexities of Pessoa Zenith, a translator and literary critic, spent more than a decade collating material. The result is a tour de force." -- Cláudia Pazos Alonso - Times Literary Supplement
"A revelation... Such a revolutionary literary discovery seems unlikely to be on offer again. It's that good." -- David Sexton - Sunday Times
"A masterpiece of literary biography. Zenith's achievement is extraordinary. By illuminating this elusive figure, Zenith has produced a work in some ways as astonishing as those of Pessoa himself." -- John Gray - New Statesman
"[I]n this gloriously labyrinthine biography . . . Zenith elegantly conveys Pessoa’s eccentricity . . . while making him an exemplar of the fragmented consciousness of a modernity . . . Zenith’s dynamic prose, deep erudition, and incisive readings of Pessoa’s poetry make for a meticulous portrait of one artist’s brilliant and bewildering inner world." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"[A] capacious, perceptive biography of the enigmatic Portuguese writer... Zenith delivers careful readings of Pessoa’s works and examines with sensitivity his varied intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic proclivities as well as his longing for posthumous fame, which he amply accrued. Impressive research and evident enthusiasm inform a definitive biography." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Zenith . . . an English-language authority on Portuguese poetry . . . fastens a mysterious literary figure to history . . . detail[ing] how Pessoa’s firsthand observations of European imperialism, young democracy, and the Great War influenced his work . . . In this extensively researched biography, Zenith’s candid and questioning tone is refreshing and necessary . . . Essential to academic collections, this biography is also accessible to general audiences interested in the potential of art that does not imitate life." -- Asa Drake - Library Journal
