The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition

For the first time―and in the best translation ever―the complete Book of Disquiet, a masterpiece beyond comparison

The Book of Disquiet is the Portuguese modernist master Fernando Pessoa’s greatest literary achievement. An “autobiography” or “diary” containing exquisite melancholy observations, aphorisms, and ruminations, this classic work grapples with all the eternal questions. Now, for the first time the texts are presented chronologically, in a complete English edition by master translator Margaret Jull Costa. Most of the texts in The Book of Disquiet are written under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, an assistant bookkeeper. This existential masterpiece was first published in Portuguese in 1982, forty-seven years after Pessoa’s death. A monumental literary event, this exciting, new, complete edition spans Fernando Pessoa’s entire writing life.

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), the Portuguese poet, literary critic, and essayist, is one of the most significant literary figures of the twentieth century. He wrote not only under his own name but under over a hundred others (including Alexander Search, Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Bernardo Soares).

Jerónimo Pizarro is a professor at the Universidad de los Andes and editor-in-chief of Pessoa Plural―A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies.

Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson have translated the work of Lúcio Cardoso, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Clarice Lispector, among others. They live in England.