PESSOA, Fernando

The most distinguished modern user of multiple literary pseudonyms—heteronymswas his name for them— this Portuguese poet descended from Marranos, or Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity after the Spanish Inquisition. After his father died and his mother remarried, Pessoa grew up in Durban, South Africa, where his stepfather was the Portuguese consul. Isolated and improverished back in his native country, he reportedly filled his life with imaginary figures, who became literary characters...