A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was born in Lisbon and raised in Durban, South Africa. He attended the University of Cape Town, where he won the Queen Victoria Prize for English Essay. Pessoa wrote under more than 75 pseudonyms, many of which he developed into “heteronyms,” characters endowed with their own biographies, physiques, personalities, political views, religious attitudes, and literary pursuits, all capable of reviewing each other’s work in the literary journals of the time. The author of poetry collections, including 35 Sonnets and Mensagem, he was a leading light in Portugal’s Modernist movement. He also invented several movements, including “Intersectionism” and “Sensationism.”