How to Make a Book of Disquiet

Abstract

The Book of Disquiet, a literary work that Fernando Pessoa has not finished nor organized, presents to any editor a series of dilemmas that arise of its very nature, fragmentary and irregular: it is a work signed by different heteronyms, composed in different moments and eventually put aside by its author. This article aims to compare and analyze different editions of the Book of Disquiet, from the earliest and more traditional ones to the more modern and experimental ones. For this purpose, it tries to place the Book of Disquiet within the context of Pessoa’s production, and it references the works of authors of Literary Theory, like Gérard Genette and Roland Barthes, both of who have written on the nature of the book object. The idea is to propose a reflection about the editor’s task and the possibilities that appear before a work of such problematic organization.