Although Fernando Pessoa lived in Durban, province of Natal, from the age of seven till he was seventeen, nowhere in his writings is there the slightest allusion to the geography, to the sociopolitical environment or to the people he knew there. Consequently, it is easy for critics to overlook this South African facet of the Portuguese poet's life, since it occurred in a far-off land, in a country today beset by a series of sociopolitical problems of a controversial nature, and within a culture far removed from the concerns of Portuguese intellectuals, traditionally turned to French writers and French philosophers as models.

Yet the South African experience, having taken place at a time most crucial for the formation of the poet's personality and for the definition of his intellect, stands out as the most significant period in his life: it is accountable for the kind of man he was and, certainly, for the kind of poet he was to become.

Fernando Pessoa did not relate to South Africa in his writings for the simple reason that Durban, the city where he lived for almost ten years, did not, at that time, align itself with the rest of the country, but was, in essence, an English city. Its institutions, as well as the majority of the white components of the population, were British. As far as education is concerned, the British system of public schools prevailed: Head Masters and school masters were hired in the British isles; the courses and programs followed those of the mother country, and a system of external exams, administered by the University of Good Hope, insured uniformity.

In discussing Fernando Pessoa's South African sojourn, it is important, therefore, to keep in mind the «Britishness» of the city of Durban and the poet's own conviction -true for those times- that he was living in a British environment, under British institutions, governed by British law. The problems that concerned him were not the problems associated with South Africa today, but problems that had to do exclusively with the British Empire and its geopolitical influence throughout the world.

For a long time now, ever since I began working on unraveling the mysteries of Fernando Pessoa's residence in South Africa, I have been hearing the remark that the Portuguese poet never really lived in that country. The comment was repeated on more than one occasion during a trip I took to Durban in June, 1986, for the unveiling of Fernando Pessoa's statue.

As is widely known, Fernando Pessoa lived in that city for a period of ten years (January, 1896-August, 1905). Although it is understood that what is in question is the extent of his acculturation and not his physical presence, the statement that Pessoa never lived in South Africa is perplexing and I would like, therefore, to consider its implications in this article.

The notion that Pessoa never lived in South Africa is an old one. It was first stated by the poet's first and so far only biographer, João Gaspar Simões. In a biography of Pessoa, Simões suggested that the poet had led a self-centered life in Durban, totally absorbed by books and other school work, oblivious to any other interests, such as sports, friends or the sociopolitical reality surrounding him (53, 72-73).

Contrary to Simões, those who contemporarily speak of Pessoa's «non-life» in Durban are referring to the problems which assail that country now, as if they had existed or, rather, had been recognized as problems, at the time Pessoa lived there.

Although racial discrimination existed even then, the most prevailing social issue was the Boer War (1899-1902) and its aftermath of tension   —527→   between the imperial British and the Afrikaners, descendants of the Dutch, who comprised the Boer army. At the time Fernando Pessoa lived in Durban the city was predominantly English, governed by English laws with little Afrikaner representation. The citizens attended traditional British schools, staffed by English school masters; they spent their leisure time going to the races or taking part in English games, such as, cricket and rugby. The large number of Indians working as maids and house boys insured the privileged life of the British.

As an upper-class white male Fernando Pessoa enjoyed the privilege and affluence inherent to his class. A house in the affluent Berea residential district, Indian servants, excellent schools, books to read. The extent of his English acculturation is well documented by the assimilation he made of the English language, which he spoke as well or better than a native -in November, 1903, while taking the Matriculation Examination, he received the Queen Victoria Memorial Prize for the best English essay among 889 candidates- by the high grades he received in the several external examinations, and by the well-wrought poems and fluent prose works he wrote in English at this time. On the other hand, it is evident that Pessoa was not, legally or otherwise, a British subject as his schoolmates were, for he was a member of a Portuguese family whose head of the household was the diplomatic representative of the King of Portugal. As much as he might have assimilated the English language and penetrated the works of English writers and philosophers to their innermost depths, Fernando Pessoa remained a foreigner while in Durban, considered as such by his teachers and school fellows. While he absorbed to the utmost the spiritual life offered to him at school, excelling in all the subjects -in 1904 he won the Home Exhibition, a scholarship which would have permitted him to study at Oxford or Cambridge for four years, but for which he was apparently ineligible- he remained aloof from others, conscious of his separateness, even if at times he would show much school spirit at games and other functions connected with the school.

Fernando Pessoa did not remain passive before the social injustices and imperial arrogance he observed. At times, he spoke out against them, and he would have done so today had he lived in South Africa in these troubled times. He did so, not necessarily as a foreigner or as an Englishman, but, first of all, as a concerned human being, an incipient poet, yearning for social justice and fair play. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that these noble thoughts and anti-British pronouncements would have come to him had he been a true Durban native. The political mood against the Boers was too incensed, the traditional affinities with England too great, to warrant such a reaction.

Throughout his life, Fernando Pessoa had the objective stance of the poet, a duality between himself and the outer world which was perfected in him through the experience of having lived in South Africa at such a tender age and having absorbed that country's British culture so completely. He would maintain an equal objectivity and aloofness during the years he spent in Portugal, from 1905 to 1935, when he died.

Contrary to what has been said and is widely believed, Fernando Pessoa participated in Durban's political life on several occasions. He did so once, subscribing C. R. Anon, one of the invented names he used during the Durban days. In April, 1904, he took part in a verse polemic in the Natal Mercury, in which the main participants were C. H. Haggar, owner and Head Master of the Commercial School he had attended the year before, and a rival politician (Jennings 47-52). In the National Library in Lisbon, under the rubric, E3/144 N-9, there is a document referring to this event as well as to others of a political nature. The document lists the titles of articles the poet had written up to that time -all before 1905.

In the photographed document entitled «Rags» enclosed by Pedro da Silveira in the article published in the Revista da Biblioteca Nacional mentioned above, the same two sonnets appear listed.⁵⁶ In addition, there is an allusion to a document accompanying the sonnets, sent on the same occasion to the Natal Mercury reporter, «The Man in the Moon». Excerpts of the two sonnets have been published by Hubert Jennings in Os Dois Exílios (95-96), along with fragments of other sonnets written about the same time. The accompanying letter, however,   —528→   has not, to my knowledge, ever been published. I found it recently, while looking for vestiges of Pessoa's residence in South Africa, among the papers housed at the National Library in Lisbon (BN).

In the letter transcribed above, Pessoa mentions the remittance of three sonnets. Only two have survived that deal with this particular subject, although others exist, on a different theme, written at this time. However, in the lists that the poet drew up, the one above and the one enclosed by Pedro da Silveira, only two are mentioned.

As is to be expected, the sonnets treat the same subject as the letter, that is -the British journalists' derision of the Russians. One point that Pessoa makes in the letter becomes predominant in the sonnets; without the letter, the sonnets would have been much more difficult to decipher. Pessoa sees as a hidden cause for the British joy at the Russian defeat, the removal of the Russian threat to England's Eastern possession India. Here are the two sonnets which were sent, along with the letter transcribed above, to the Natal Mercury and refused publication by this newspaper:

In the last line of the above sonnet there is a reference to British might against the Boers, «the farmer race» and the taking of their freedom. As mentioned previously, the question of what the British should do with the defeated Boers was the great issue of the day, and not racial conflict, the topic that engulfs South Africa today, but which, although existing, had not as yet surfaced as a controversial topic. The farming Boers, desirous of political autonomy and land to cultivate their crops, felt encroached by the British, especially in English-dominated Durban. The two remaining sonnets deal with British oppression of other peoples. The one entitled «Joseph Chamberlain» accuses this English statesman of being responsible for the Boer War and for the ensuing plight of the «farmer race». Contrary to the other two sonnets on the jostling of the Russians, both written on the same day -June 19th, 1905- the one entitled «Joseph Chamberlain» was written back in February. This shows that Pessoa's disaffection with the British policies he witnessed in Durban dates from at least that time.

Curiously, shortly before that date, in January, he had been notified by the board of the University of the Cape of Good Hope that he had passed the Intermediate Examination with a second class pass. We know now that he had failed to receive -the reason is still unknown- the Home Exhibition scholarship, given by the government of Natal, that would have entitled him to study at Oxford University for four years. This in spite of the fact that in the exam just mentioned, he had received a higher score than his nearest competitor who did win the competition. It would not be too far-fetched to infer that the poet had been affected in his dealings with the British sociopolitical system by the discrimination he had himself endured. As a result of his failing to win the Home Exhibition, Pessoa decided to return to his native city at the end of August, 1905, in order to continue his studies at the University of Lisbon.

The most complete and the most well wrought sonnet of the series, «Liberty», was written the day after, on June 20th. It must have been the third sonnet sent by Pessoa to «The Man in the Moon»; like the others, it was refused publication in the Natal Mercury.

Setting aside the youthful ardor, this sonnet is an indictment of the British and a staunch defense of the less powerful Boers and the Irish. In it, Fernando Pessoa reacts, in a gesture of commitment and condemnation, against the social ills he observes in the Durban environment.

While it may be true that Pessoa never spoke against racial segregation -that was not an issue at the time- he reacted most vehemently to the injustices he observed, such as Great Britain's domination of and disaffection for the Boers and the Irish, as well as to the playfully sarcastic remarks British journalists directed against the Russians. Had Fernando Pessoa been alive today, living in twentieth-century South Africa, it is likely that he would have reacted in a similar manner against those who promote white racial supremacy.

The idea that Pessoa was egotistical and self-centered, unaware of social injustice and political totalitarianism, is not a valid one. The example often given of the two players engrossed in a game of chess while the city is being invaded, the subject of a poem by the heteronym Ricardo Reis, is not valid beyond its artistic context. The   —530→   need to separate the poet's art from the personal life obtains here as well.

Nor are these adolescent reactions isolated instances of social commitment or, in reference to the above episode, the result of unbridled youthful ardor. The adult Fernando Pessoa often participated, again through writing, in acts of political disobedience. In 1915, through the pen of his invented self, the heteronym Álvaro de Campos, he had published in the Lisbon newspaper A Capital a controversial article in which he ridiculed the then President of the Council of Ministers, Dr. Afonso Costa. Toward the end of his life, he wrote several poems -like most everything he wrote these were not published until years after his death- criticizing the person and the government of Prime Minister and virtual dictator, Dr. António de Oliveira Salazar.

Besides these reactions, prompted by the sociopolitical Portuguese environment, there is further the solidarity, shown by the poet to two of his friends, Raúl Leal and António Botto, when the latter were publically attacked for their moral conduct by the then incipient fascist youth. The article he published in the Diário de Lisboa (April, 1935) in defense of Freemasonry is now well known.

The same sense of fair play and loyal commitment on behalf of the underdog that characterized Pessoa's defense of the chastised Russians and the trampled Boers and Irish guided his actions throughout life. The humanist that came out in defense of friends and spoke out against the government was already contained in the adolescent living in Durban. Consequently, had he been living in present-day South Africa, confronted by the social problems that afflict that country, especially the discrimination experienced by the largest segment of the population, the blacks, Fernando Pessoa would have reacted in the same manner. Yes, Fernando Pessoa did live in South Africa and reacted, nobly and persuasively, to the social and political ills of the day.⁵⁷

BN, E/3, 114.1-52, 53, 54, 55.

Jennings, H. D. Os Dois Exílios: Fernando Pessoa na África do Sul. Porto: Centro de Estudos Pessoanos, 1984.

Severino, Alexandrino E. Fernando Pessoa na África do Sul. Lisboa: Dom Quixote, 1983.

Silveira, Pedro da. «Fernando Pessoa: A sua estreia aos 14 anos e outros poemas de 1902 a 1905». Revista da Biblioteca Nacional 3 (Sept.-Dec., 1988): 97-121.

Simões, João Gaspar. Vida e Obra de Fernando Pessoa: História de uma Geração. Lisboa: Ed. Bertrand, 1950.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 74, Number 3, September 1991