Fernando Pessoa

(1888 - 1935)

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa published much of his work under a series of “heteronyms,” literary alter egos for whom he created complex and overlapping biographies. About two of them he once wrote in a letter, “If one day I am able to publish the aesthetic discussion between Ricardo Reis and Alvaro de Campos, you will see how much they differ from each other and how I am nothing in this matter.”