Here is the fourth in a series of volumes by Fernando Pessoa’s celebrated “heteronyms.” Fernando Pessoa did not simply write under pseudonyms―he created a coterie of imagined authors, each with a fully realized biography, distinct temperament, singular style, and governing philosophy. Among them, Ricardo Reis stands as the most poised and classical presence in this literary cosmos: an exiled monarchist physician and avowed Hellenist who answers modern restlessness with lucid form, stoic restraint, and a pagan sense of measure. Reis contemplates the world as if it were a chessboard―serene, exacting, unsentimental. His odes move among jugs of wine, ivy leaves, destiny, and the austere pleasure of self-command, yet beneath their composure runs a quiet existential unease―the intuition that “within us live innumerable others.” Born in the early twentieth century, between the rise of Cubism and the emergence of Dada, Ricardo Reis embodies antiquity within modernity―his paradoxical poise marking a distinctly modern classicism. Based on the definitive Tinta-da-china edition (Portugal) and introduced by Jerónimo Pizarro, this bilingual volume―beautifully translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari―reveals Pessoa’s most measured voice: intellectually rigorous, emotionally contained, and quietly radical in its resistance to the noise of its age. The Complete Works of Ricardo Reis is a must-have collection by Pessoa’s most refined Pessoa’s most refined heteronym.
“Arguably, the four greatest poets in the Portuguese language were all Pessoa using different names.”― NPR
“As searing as Rilke or Mandelstam.” ― The New York Times
“Indispensable.”― Publishers Weekly
“A rhapsodic collection of poems. In this marvelous introduction to Pessoa’s multitudes, readers will find a wealth of material to explore among the subversive paganism of Reis’ odes. A gem of literary history that will spark further exploration through the author’s canon. Despite each poem striving to reach the same sense of enlightenment, they rarely feel redundant and instead recapitulate like a recurring motif. Classical imagery courses through, imbuing the poems with Dionysian ecstasy.”― Kirkus (starred)
“Pessoa possesses a genius for keeping the reader close and when I read Reis’ poems, I feel like the authors are peering over my shoulder and reflecting on the horrors of this distracted age.”― The LA Times
“Reis’s poetic style is a model of Horatian clarity, elegantly austere as a Doric column. Metrically, the measured tread of Reis’s odes suits the poet’s reflective mood, now bittersweet, now wryly resigned, now tinged with a fatalistic acceptance of whatever the gods decree.”― Mark Dery, 4Columns
About the Author
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).
A poet, translator, and editor, Patricio Ferrari has translated the works of Fernando Pessoa and Alejandra Pizarnik, among others.
About the Translators
Margaret Jull Costa has won countless prizes for her translations from Portuguese and Spanish. She has won the Portuguese Translation Prize twice and been shortlisted twice. She won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Weidenfeld Translation Prize twice, and the Pen Translation Prize. She has been awarded an OBE and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Patricio Ferrari is a poet, translator, and editor, and has translated the works of Pessoa and Alejandra Pizarnik, among others.
About the Editors
Jerónimo Pizarro is a Professor at the Universidad de los Andes and holds the Camões Institute Chair of Portuguese Studies in Colombia. Jorge Uribe has edited several editions of Pessoa’s works and translated various Portuguese authors into Spanish.
Review by Mark Dery – 4Columns
Book Details
Title: The Complete Works of Ricardo Reis
Author: Fernando Pessoa
Translators: Margaret Jull Costa & Patricio Ferrari
Editors: Jerónimo Pizarro & Jorge Uribe
Publisher: New Directions
Publication Date: May 5, 2026
Language: English
Paperback: 272 pp
Available @ Amazon.com
