Fernando Pessoast (1888–1935) sai pärast surma kõige tuntum ja tõlgitum portugali luuletaja ning üks maailmakirjanduse suurimaid nimesid. Kirjanik, kes avaldas oma loomingut üksikasjalike elulugudega varustatud heteronüümide all, oli kõige vabam, värskem ja pessoalikum laevandusinsener Álvaro de Camposena. Just Camposes sai Pessoast tõeline XX sajandi poeet, kelle luuleridades peegeldub rahutu aastasaja inimese mitmepalgeline, ilus valu ja valus ilu ning mööduvuse pöördumatust hoomav elutunnetus. Kogumikus on toodud paremik kuulsa lissabonlase hilisemast luulest, milles on justkui kristalliseerunud Pessoa ja tema alter ego maailmapilt ja stiil. Lisaks on tõlkija Tõnu Õnnepalu 2022. aasta väljaande juurde kirjutanud eessõna oma paljudest kohtumistest Pessoaga.
Author
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a poet and writer. It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they had different religious and political views, different aesthetic sensibilities, different social temperaments. And each produced a large body of poetry. Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis also signed dozens of pages of prose. The critic Harold Bloom referred to him in the book The Western Canon as the most representative poet of the twentieth century, along with Pablo Neruda.
