Letters to Ophélia

Fernando Pessoa



Antonio Seguí (illustrations)

15th October 1920

Little Baby,

You have thousands, even millions, of good reasons for being irked, offended, and arky with me. But I’m not the one to blame. It’s Fate that has condemned my brain –if not definitively, then at least to a condition calling for serious treatment, which I’m not so sure I can get. I plan (without yet resorting to the celebrated May 11th decree) to enter a clinic next month, where I’m hoping for a treatment that will help me fend off the black wave that’s falling over my mind. I don’t know what the result of all this will be –I mean, I can’t imagine what it could be. Don’t wait for me. If I come to see you, it will be in the morning, when you’re on your way to the office in Poço Novo. Don’t worry. What happened, you ask? I got switched with Álvaro de Campos!

Always your

Fernando

48 letters and 16 poems bear witness to the secret romance between the Portuguese poet and young Ophélia Queiroz. A correspondence built up during the decisive years of Fernando Pessoa’s literary production.

Antonio Tabucchi’s prologue offers a deep reflection on these collected letters. Antonio Seguí, the great plastic artist, dedicated those letters more than thirty excellent watercolours.

Translation: Alejandro García Schnetzer

140 x 210 mm; 174 pp. Hardback
ISBN: 978-84-92412-47-1

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