The Book of Disquiet

By Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (translator),

Book cover of The Book of Disquiet

Book description

A modernist masterwork that has now taken on a similar iconic status to Ulysses, The Trial or In Search of Lost Time, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet is edited and translated with an introduction by Richard Zenith in Penguin Modern Classics.

'Fernando Pessoa, strictly speaking, doesn't exist,' - so…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Why read it?

1 author picked The Book of Disquiet as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet—original, counter, spare, strange—is not like anyone’s book, truly, in its mix of prose poetry, reflections, impressions, descriptions of psychic states and the city of Lisbon. I’d say read it to remind you of how hauntingly elliptical and daring a book can be.

I love it for its mysterious quality—how it evokes, invokes moods—how it stays ahead of you—always inviting you to come back to it. It taught me to welcome the unfinished and fragmentary, the evasive and the atmospheric, the creation of new identities in a book, that enigma and precise description can exist…

Want books like The Book of Disquiet?

Our community of 10,000+ authors has personally recommended 12 books like The Book of Disquiet.

Browse books like The Book of Disquiet

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Kabbalah?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about Lisbon, Portugal, and the Kabbalah.

Lisbon Explore 10 books about Lisbon
Portugal Explore 34 books about Portugal
The Kabbalah Explore 25 books about the Kabbalah