FERNANDO PESSOA was born in Lisbon in 1888. As a young man, he dropped out of university and made his living by translating, writing in avant-garde reviews, and drafting business letters in English and French. He began publishing criticism in 1912, creative prose in 1913, and poetry in 1914. He published his works under a variety of alter egos he called heteronyms—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Álvaro de Campos, and nearly seventy others. He died in Lisbon, in 1935.