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The Book of Disquiet
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Table of Contents

Introduction   vii
Notes on the Text and Translation   xxvii
Acknowledgements   xxxii

The Book Of Disquiet

Preface by Fernando Pessoa   3
A Factless Autobiography   9
A Disquiet Anthology   393

Appendix I: Texts Citing the Name of Vicente Guedes   465
Appendix II: Two Letters   467
Appendix III: Reflections on The Book of Disquiet from Pessoa's Writings   471
Notes   477
Table of Heteronyms    505

About the Author

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

Reviews

“I can’t tell which of the three English-language editions of The Book of Disquiet I’ve read . . . most accurately conveys the style and spirit of Pessoa, but judging the English alone, Zenith’s translation is most compelling. . . . I want Pessoa to be as great as the version Zenith presents.” —Chris Power, New Statesman 

“A Modernist touchstone . . . no one has explored alternative selves with Pessoa’s mixture of determination and abandon . . . In a time which celebrates fame, success, stupidity, convenience and noise, here is the perfect antidote, a hymn of praise to obscurity, failure, intelligence, difficulty, and silence.” —The Daily Telegraph
 
“His prose masterpiece . . . Richard Zenith has done an heroic job in producing the best English-language version we are likely to see for a long time, if ever.” —The Guardian
 
“The Book of Disquiet was left in a trunk which might never have been opened. The gods must be thanked that it was. I love this strange work of fiction and I love the inventive, hard-drinking, modest man who wrote it in obscurity.” —Independent
 
“Fascinating, even gripping stuff . . . a strangely addictive pleasure.” —Sunday Times
 
“Must rank as the supreme assault on authorship in modern European literature . . . readers of Zenith’s edition will find it supersedes all others in its delicacy of style, rigorous scholarship and sympathy for Pessoa’s fractured sensibility . . . the self-revelation of a disoriented and half-disintegrated soul that is all the more compelling because the author himself is an invention . . . Long before postmodernism became an academic industry, Pessoa lived deconstruction.” —New Statesman
 
“Extraordinary . . . a haunting mosaic of dreams, autobiographical vignettes, shards of literary theory and criticism and maxims.” —The Observer
 
“Pessoa’s rapid prose, snatched in flight and restlessly suggestive, remains haunting, often startling, like the touch of a vibrating wire, elusive and persistent like the poetry . . . there is nobody like him.” —The New York Review of Books
 
“This superb edition of The Book of Disquiet is . . . a masterpiece.”  —The Daily Telegraph
 
“I plan to use this book every year in my course at Yale. Thanks for making it available.” —K. David Jackson, Yale University

  

Recognized as Portugal's greatest poet since Camoens, Pessoa (1888-1935) wrote poetry under various heteronyms to whom he attributed biographies different from his own. Likewise, this rich and rewarding notebook kept by the solitary, celibate, and semi-alcoholic Pessoa during the last two decades of his life, is written under yet another heteronym (Bernardo Soares), a Lisbon bookkeeper with a position that is like a siesta and a salary that allows him to go on living. Soares knows no pleasure like that of books, yet he reads little. Like Camus, he is irritated by the happiness of men who don't know they are wretched, and his main objective is to perceive tedium in such a way that it ceases to hurt. There are no gossipy details in this heteronymous memoir, only the cerebral workings of a first-rate thinker on the dilemma of life. Full of fresh metaphors and unique perceptions, The Book of Disquiet can be casually scanned and read profitably even at random.-- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.

"I can't tell which of the three English-language editions of The Book of Disquiet I've read . . . most accurately conveys the style and spirit of Pessoa, but judging the English alone, Zenith's translation is most compelling. . . . I want Pessoa to be as great as the version Zenith presents." -Chris Power, New Statesman

"A Modernist touchstone . . . no one has explored alternative selves with Pessoa's mixture of determination and abandon . . . In a time which celebrates fame, success, stupidity, convenience and noise, here is the perfect antidote, a hymn of praise to obscurity, failure, intelligence, difficulty, and silence." -The Daily Telegraph

"His prose masterpiece . . . Richard Zenith has done an heroic job in producing the best English-language version we are likely to see for a long time, if ever." -The Guardian

"The Book of Disquiet was left in a trunk which might never have been opened. The gods must be thanked that it was. I love this strange work of fiction and I love the inventive, hard-drinking, modest man who wrote it in obscurity." -Independent

"Fascinating, even gripping stuff . . . a strangely addictive pleasure." -Sunday Times

"Must rank as the supreme assault on authorship in modern European literature . . . readers of Zenith's edition will find it supersedes all others in its delicacy of style, rigorous scholarship and sympathy for Pessoa's fractured sensibility . . . the self-revelation of a disoriented and half-disintegrated soul that is all the more compelling because the author himself is an invention . . . Long before postmodernism became an academic industry, Pessoa lived deconstruction." -New Statesman

"Extraordinary . . . a haunting mosaic of dreams, autobiographical vignettes, shards of literary theory and criticism and maxims." -The Observer

"Pessoa's rapid prose, snatched in flight and restlessly suggestive, remains haunting, often startling, like the touch of a vibrating wire, elusive and persistent like the poetry . . . there is nobody like him." -The New York Review of Books

"This superb edition of The Book of Disquiet is . . . a masterpiece." -The Daily Telegraph


"I plan to use this book every year in my course at Yale. Thanks for making it available." -K. David Jackson, Yale University

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