He was born in Largo do Chiado, and spent is childhood in Durban, South Africa. At the age of seventeen he returned to Lisbon with the plans to take a degree, but never finished it. Using his good knowledge of English he started working as a translator of business correspondence. He did that all is life, until he died, in 1935, victim of liver complications. Yes, he was a drinker. He’s body was lately moved to Jeronimos Monastery, where his body rests, among kings and heroes.

Pessoa was most of all, a poet. His trademark are is heteronyms (writing under a pretend name, each one representing a different person, with completely different backgrounds and views of the world), that he started creating at the age of six. The most important are Ricardo Reis, Alberto Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos and Bernardo Soares. Under the name of Fernando Pessoa he wrote his most important work, Mensagem (Message), an epic poem regarding Portuguese history. Pessoa was one of the lead figures of the Portuguese modern literature, movement that grew in the Orpheu magazine, among other important artistic names like Mário de Sá Carneiro or Almada Negreiros.

Although not very visible, Pessoa presence is still around town. In the downtown streets, where he walked from home to work, without ever being recognized as a great poet. On the Brasileira coffee house, on Largo do Chiado, where is used to drink his coffee, and his statue has placed. On Casa Fernando Pessoa, where he lived. On Jeronimos, where his body lays.

If you like reading, there is this book by José Saramago, named “Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis”, tell us a fictional story of Ricardo Reis, one of Pessoa heteronyms, arriving at Lisbon on the day that Pessoa died.