Translations from Portuguese

Luís Vaz de Camões Selected Shorter Poems

Shearsman Classics No. 30. Translated from Portuguese by Jonathan Griffin. Bilingual edition.

With an introduction by Jorge de Sena & an essay by Hélder Macedo.

Published 2021. Paperback, 102pp, 8.5 x 5.5ins, £10.95 / $18

ISBN 9781848616769 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

This companion volume to The Lusiads (see above) brings together all of Jonathan Griffin’s translations of Camões’ shorter poems — mostly sonnets and redondilhas.

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Luis Vaz de Camoes Selected Shorter Poems

Luís Vaz de Camões The Lusiads

Shearsman Classics No. 29. Translated from Portuguese by Sir Richard Fanshawe. English only.

Published 2021. Paperback, 376pp, 9 x 6ins, £19.95 / $32

ISBN 9781848616790 [Download a sample PDF from this book here .]

The Lusiads is Camões’ masterpiece and to all intents and purposes his attempt at a Portuguese founding narrative along the lines of the Aeneid , dealing with the rise of Portugal as a maritime power, rather than the rise of Rome. Fittingly, the major presence in these pages is the great navigator, Vasco de Gama. Fanshawe completed his masterly translation while under house arrest at his family estate, during the Cromwellian interregnum, and it is one of the great English literary translations of the 17th century. It holds up particularly well today against more modern versions.

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Luís Amorim de Sousa In Spite of All

Published 2015. Paperback, 114 pp, 8x5ins, £12.95 / $20

ISBN 9781848613638

In Spite of All is a memoir by a Portuguese poet, of another Portuguese poet: Alberto de Lacerda, an almost legendary figure in expatriate circles. Lacerda lived for many years in London, with sojourns also in Boston and in Austin, Texas, when lectureships took him away, but he always returned to his adopted city. A fine poet, Lacerda also had a talent for friendship, which is amply borne out by Luís Amorim de Sousa's touching memoir of his friend.

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Fernando Pessoa Message

Translated from Portuguese by Jonathan Griffin. Bilingual edition.

Published 2007. Paperback, 108pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £10.95 / $18.

ISBN 9781905700271 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

Pessoa published only one collection of his Portuguese poetry during his lifetime, and then only in 1934, a year before his death: Mensagem (Message). This exquisite collection of apparently patriotic poems hides a deeply symbolic style, where famous figures from Portuguese history and national myth become symbols of the poet's life and quest. This volume is a second edition of the collection first published by Menard Press & King's College London in 1992.

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Fernando Pessoa Selected English Poems

Published 2007. Paperback, 106pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £10.95 / $18.

ISBN 97819057002641 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

Pessoa wrote a large number of poems in English, which prove to be fascinating precursors of the later, modernist work in Portuguese. While not the equal of the masterly Caeiro, Campos, Reis or Pessoa-himself, these poems deserve to be better known and at least available in the English-speaking world. Pessoa was educated in English in Durban, as the stepson of a Portuguese diplomat, and was completely bilingual. What is not so well-known is that Pessoa continued to write poetry in a bookish form of English throughout his life and this volume is an attempt to show the nature of that work to its originally intended audience — an anglophone readership.

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Fernando Pessoa The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro

Translated from Portuguese by Chris Daniels. English only.

Published 2007. Paperback, 200pp, 8.5x5.5ins £12.95 / $20.

ISBN 9781905700240 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

Translated by Chris Daniels, one of the USA's leading translators of Lusophone poetry. The only integral collection of the Caeiro heteronym in English, this is accompanied by the introductory writings of Ricardo Reis and a memoir by Álvaro de Campos, two of the other major poetic heteronyms, as well as a poem by C. Pacheco, believed to be another one-off heteronym of Pessoa's.

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Fernando Pessoa The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro

Fernando Pessoa The Collected Later Poems of Álvaro de Campos, 1928–1935

Translated from Portuguese by Chris Daniels. English only.

Published 2009. Paperback, 9x6ins. 196pp, £12.95 / $20

ISBN 9781905700257 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

Álvaro de Campos, along with Ricardo Reis and Alberto Caeiro is one of Pessoa's most important poetic heteronyms and, like these fellow fictitious poets, made his first appearance in 1914. He was also something of a public figure, his essays and reviews frequently appearing in Portuguese periodicals. According to Pessoa, Campos was born in the Algarve in 1890, studied naval engineering in Glasgow, was widely travelled, and lived for a number of years in England, working as an engineer. In later life he returned to live in Lisbon. His poetry, especially the earlier work, celebrates the modern world and the machine age, and marks the eruption of futurism into Portuguese poetry.

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Fernando Pessoa The Collected Poems of Álvaro de Campos Vol. 2

Fernando Pessoa Lisbon — What the Tourist Should See

Published 2008. Paperback, 84pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £10.95 / $18.

ISBN 9781905700752 [Download a sample PDF from this book here.]

In 1925, Fernando Pessoa wrote a guidebook to Lisbon for English-speaking visitors, and wrote it in English. The typescript was only discovered amongst his papers in the 1980s. The book is fascinating in that it shows us Pessoa's view of his native city — and Pessoa, as an adult, rarely left Lisbon, and it figures large in his poetry. The book can still be useful to visitors today, given that the majority of the sights described are still to be found. A fascinating scrap from the master's table… See also this website for an interactive online version of the text, with useful maps and photos.

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