Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.
He also wrote in and translated from English and French. Pessoa had a long career as freelance correspondence translator.
He translated into Portuguese "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the short stories "The Theory and the Hound", "The Roads We Take" and "Georgia's Ruling" by O. Henry, and the poems "The Raven", "Annabel Lee" and "Ulalume" by Edgar Allan Poe who, along with Walt Whitman, strongly influenced him!
In addition, Pessoa translated into Portuguese a number of books by leading theosophists such as C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant.
Pessoa's interest in spiritualism was truly awakened in the second half of 1915, while translating theosophist books.
This was further deepened in the end of March 1916, when he suddenly started having experiences where he became a medium, which were revealed through automatic writing. On June 24, Pessoa wrote an impressive letter to his aunt, then living in Switzerland with her daughter and son in law, in which he describes this "mystery case" that surprised him.
