Fernando Pessoa (Lisbon, 1888-1935) was a Portuguese poet and writer, one of the most brilliant and important figures in world literature and, in particular, in the Portuguese language.

Although his life and work are intimately linked to the city of Lisbon, he spent part of his youth in South Africa, where he received a British education that allowed him to earn a living as a translator. At night, after leaving the commercial office where he spent his days, he wrote poetry embodying various fictional authors, heteronyms with different styles, modes, and voices—a literary doubling of his personality that made Pessoa an enigmatic author. Unlike pseudonyms, his heteronyms are complete poetic personalities: false identities that somehow become true through an artistic expression distinct from the original author. Among them, Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos, and Ricardo Reis stand out. He even wrote and published reviews of works he had written under other names using some of these pseudonyms. A fourth heteronym of great importance in Pessoa's work is Bernardo Soares, author of The Book of Disquiet , his principal prose contribution to world literature.

Pessoa died of liver problems at the age of 47, in the same city where he was born, leaving behind a vast unpublished body of work that still sparks analysis and controversy.