Everything Lisbon, as Seen Through the Eyes of Pessoa, the Writer Loved by Kundera, Paz, Saramago, and Handke

Fernando Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1888 and passed away in the same city in 1935. During his lifetime, only a handful of his manuscripts saw the light of day. After his death, thousands of pages of his writings were discovered in a single trunk in his room. These manuscripts, after painstaking classification by friends, volunteers, and researchers, were eventually compiled into books. Among them was the manuscript for Lisbon: What the Tourist Should See. Unlike other works like his masterpiece The Book of Disquiet, which were scattered and handwritten, this manuscript was neatly typed in English and bound, suggesting it had been prepared with publication in mind. Scholars believe this work was intended to promote Portugal to an international audience. Long forgotten, the manuscript was rediscovered around 1988, the centenary of Pessoa’s birth, and subsequently published. It has since been translated into numerous languages, including German, Italian, Spanish, and French.

For Pessoa, Lisbon was not just a city but a distillation of Portugal itself. During his childhood in South Africa, Lisbon became an idealized, longed-for homeland to which he felt he must return. Yet, at the same time, it was also a place where he encountered foreign ignorance of Portugal’s very existence, compelling him to introduce it to the wider world. Pessoa spent his life yearning to uncover the “real” Lisbon, a vision that seemed perpetually elusive.

In this brief guidebook, Pessoa’s complex and contradictory feelings about Lisbon blend with a sense of duty to present the city’s “must-sees” to tourists. As a result, the guide contains a voice of Pessoa distinct from his other works. Here, he seeks to share as much as possible about Portugal’s history, culture, and its capital, Lisbon, with his intended readers.