Eighty-five years after his wrenching death in a cramped Lisbon apartment, where he left more than 25,000 manuscript sheets in a wooden trunk, Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) remains one of the most enigmatic and underappreciated poets of the twentieth century. Setting the story of Pessoa's life against the nationalistic currents of early twentieth-century European history, Zenith charts the depths of Pessoa's explosive imagination and literary genius. He traces the backstories of virtually all of Pessoa's imagined personalities, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs, or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself.

Part 1. The born foreigner (1888-1905) -- Part II. The poet as transformer (1905-1914) -- Part III. Dreamer and civilizer (1914-1925) -- Part IV. Spiritualist and humanist (1925-1935).