Fernando Pessoa

Richard Schain obtained A.B. (philosophy) and M.D. degrees at New York University. Trained in neurology at the Yale Medical Center, he later served as professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles before embarking on the life of an independent philosopher pursuing the significance of the interior self. Schain first discovered Pessoa in Spanish translation, thereupon becoming a lifelong student of his works. Currently, he divides his time with his wife between Alamos, Mexico and Sonoita, Arizona. Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was born in Lisbon but received an English secondary school education in South Africa. He returned to Lisbon at age 17 years, gradually involving himself with the avant garde literary circles of Portugal. Pessoa wrote a great deal of highly original poetry and prose, but was able to publish little during his lifetime. He was hardly known outside the literary vanguard of Lisbon. The end of his life was marked by a tragic isolation. Pessoa's remarkable fame came posthumously; today many in Portugal and Brazil regard him as the premier poet of the Portuguese language.