Fernando Pessoa

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (Lisbon, 13 June 1888 - Lisbon, 30 November 1935), also known as Fernando Pessoa, was a Portuguese poet and writer. 
Pessoa is considered one of the greatest Portuguese poets. He has been compared to Luís Vaz de Camões. 
He was born in Lisbon. His father and younger brother died when he was five years old. When he was seven, he moved with his mother to Durban, South Africa. His writing would be influenced by the English language which he learned in there. He lived there until he was seventeen. 
Pessoa wrote poems and other things as if they were written by persons who are not himself in any way. Each person had his own life story, physical qualities, relationship to the others, poetic voice, and point of view. These are called "heteronyms." Pessoa invented at least 72 of these other persons. His three main poets, for example, are described like this: "Alberto Caeiro, a rural, uneducated poet of great ideas who wrote in free verse; Ricardo Reis, a physician who composed formal odes influenced by Horace; and Álvaro de Campos, an adventurous London-based naval engineer influenced by poet Walt Whitman and the Italian Futurists." 
Pessoa died of liver disease at age 47 in Lisbon. His last written words were in English: "I know not what tomorrow will bring".