---
product_id: 4532628
title: "The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)"
price: "176 Lei"
currency: RON
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.ro/products/4532628-the-book-of-disquiet-penguin-classics
store_origin: RO
region: Romania
---

# 4.7/5 rating from 1,205 readers 481 existential fragments Written early 20th century The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)

**Price:** 176 Lei
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 📖 Unlock the mind of a literary genius before everyone else does!

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)
- **How much does it cost?** 176 Lei with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ro](https://www.desertcart.ro/products/4532628-the-book-of-disquiet-penguin-classics)

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## Key Features

- • **Own a Piece of Literary History:** Used copy in good condition—join the exclusive circle of Pessoa readers
- • **Critically Acclaimed Translation:** Richard Zenith’s luminous translation brings Pessoa’s genius to life
- • **Dive into Existential Brilliance:** 481 poetic, introspective fragments that redefine literature
- • **Cult Favorite Among Intellectuals:** Ranked top 10,000 in books with a stellar 4.7-star rating
- • **Timeless Classic with Modern Relevance:** Written during the golden literary era alongside Proust and Joyce

## Overview

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa is a seminal work of existential literature composed of 481 poetic fragments exploring life’s absurdity and introspection. Translated by Richard Zenith, this Penguin Classics edition offers a profound, semi-fictional journey into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most innovative writers. Highly rated and cherished by intellectual readers, this used copy in good condition invites you to experience a timeless masterpiece that resonates deeply with modern existential thought.

## Description

The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics) [Pessoa, Fernando, Zenith, RICHARD, Zenith, RICHARD] on desertcart.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)

Review: Enjoyable Poignant Writing - Excellent observațional and self reflecting writing by Pessoa from all his literary personalities. I don't know why I haven't read him or even heard of him before. I recommend this book since Pessoa writes what we're all thinking but we just can't put it into words. You'll find yourself in this book.
Review: Disquieting Semi-Fiction of Genius - "B of D" is a work of pure genius written in gloriously lyrical, existential prose: it wants to be poetry and, at times, it is. Pessoa is a profoundly introspective and honest writer who defined existential themes based upon his frank study of his own life and dreams: it's possible that Pessoa is the most honest writer who ever lived. He is highly self-critical, self-effacing and suffers from the "disquiet" of his simple life as a bookkeeper in Lisbon. He wrote "B of D" in that richly germinal literary era in Europe of Proust and Joyce. He composed 481 fragments about the absurdity of life by which he means the inability of man to understand his own existence. "Each of us is a speck of dust that the wind lifts up and then drops." Pessoa's disquieting themes eventually grew into the philosophical worldview claimed by the existentialists but he was an existentialist before many of them. Pessoa writes with the passion of Nietzsche. He is Camus before Camus. He has Kafka's rich sense of the absurd. He experiences daily Sartre's nausea. I devoured every word of "B of D" by Pessoa who had the misfortune to remain largely undiscovered and unread until long after his death. His work is existential in the genre of Camus or Sartre ("I think, therefore, I am a mustache.") He is dark, at times, but his introspection is oceanic in its breadth, depth and turbulent existential Angst. His writing has been described as "semi-fiction" and "anti-literature" by his translator. Great writers inevitably challenge the logic of traditional syntax as well as the genres in which they write to transform their genres by the genius of their innovative literary styles which become legacies in themselves. Pessoa writes in fragments which are neither fiction nor poetry but are autobiographical and as such show his disconnect both with life and his own art -- there is no real flow between one fragment and the next like life itself in his existential worldview. He considered his life "an intermission with band music." He also wrote in heteronyms under several noms de plume as if to say he couldn't really even attest to his own single identity as a writer. His fragments are deep, consuming, intellectual dives into his own everyday life. Normally, autobiography is a sign of an immature writer, which Pessoa clearly is not. He writes about his dull job as an accountant among Lisbon's streets and his sightings while smoking at outdoor cafes as well as about thunderstorms, solitude, dreams, the absurdity and futility of life, art, sex, JJ Rousseau and his work. My only criticism of Pessoa comes from his odd observations and poor advice about sex. His translator, Richard Zenith, believes it was possible that Pessoa died a virgin. I make it a practice never ever to take advice on sex from priests, nuns and lifelong virgins. Richard Zenith's translation is truly luminous and he brings rich nuance into the discourse of every line. Like my copy of "The Recognitions" by William Gaddis, I have underlined fragments on nearly every page because it is so deeply relevant, honest and compelling in its pure intellectual grandeur. Here are a few favorite passages which stand out for me from "B of D": "Irony is the first sign that our consciousness has become conscious and it passes through two stages: the one represented by Socrates, when he says, "All I know is that I know nothing' and the other represented by Sanches, when he says, 'I don't even know if I know nothing.'" "No one understands anyone else... However much one soul strives to now another, he can know only what is told him by a word -- a shapeless shadow on the ground of his understanding... I love expressions because I know nothing of what they express." "I don't know the meaning of this journey I was forced to make, between one and another night, in the company of the whole universe... We achieve nothing. Life hurls us like a stone, and we sail through the air saying, 'Look at me move.'" "The only attitude worthy of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes is useless, to observe a discipline he knows is sterile, and to apply certain norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought that he considers utterly inconsequential." "All life is a dream. No one knows what he's doing, no one knows what he wants, no one knows what he knows. We sleep our lives, eternal children of Destiny. That's why, whenever this sensation rules my thoughts, I feel an enormous tenderness that encompasses the whole of childish humanity, the whole of sleeping society, everyone, everything. It's an immediate humanitarianism, without aims or conclusions, that overwhelms me right now. I feel a tenderness as if I were seeing with the eyes of a god. I see everyone as if moved by the compassion of the world's only conscious being. Poor hapless men, poor hapless humanity! What are they all doing here?" He worked uselessly every business day for a brute capitalist and recognized by night that his writing was utterly hopelessly, inscrutably and irretrievably futile. The miracle, and the sense of this should not be lost upon you, is that every day he still writes anyway like Van Gogh painting despite making only one sale in his lifetime. I recognized Pessoa instantly from the first few fragments of his life in "B of D": I am Pessoa. And he is also you. "Book of Disquiet" is life changing. I can't remember ever having been so disappointed to see a book come to an end: it's that good. I implore you to read this immortal literary work of genius by Pessoa. It may be absurd, and even futile, to do so but sometimes the best answer to both is simply to be just as absurd.

## Features

- Used Book in Good Condition

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #8,919 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #31 in Author Biographies #253 in Classic Literature & Fiction #605 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 1,205 Reviews |

## Images

![The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91McGK9nYLL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Enjoyable Poignant Writing
*by D***S on January 29, 2026*

Excellent observațional and self reflecting writing by Pessoa from all his literary personalities. I don't know why I haven't read him or even heard of him before. I recommend this book since Pessoa writes what we're all thinking but we just can't put it into words. You'll find yourself in this book.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Disquieting Semi-Fiction of Genius
*by W***H on December 29, 2012*

"B of D" is a work of pure genius written in gloriously lyrical, existential prose: it wants to be poetry and, at times, it is. Pessoa is a profoundly introspective and honest writer who defined existential themes based upon his frank study of his own life and dreams: it's possible that Pessoa is the most honest writer who ever lived. He is highly self-critical, self-effacing and suffers from the "disquiet" of his simple life as a bookkeeper in Lisbon. He wrote "B of D" in that richly germinal literary era in Europe of Proust and Joyce. He composed 481 fragments about the absurdity of life by which he means the inability of man to understand his own existence. "Each of us is a speck of dust that the wind lifts up and then drops." Pessoa's disquieting themes eventually grew into the philosophical worldview claimed by the existentialists but he was an existentialist before many of them. Pessoa writes with the passion of Nietzsche. He is Camus before Camus. He has Kafka's rich sense of the absurd. He experiences daily Sartre's nausea. I devoured every word of "B of D" by Pessoa who had the misfortune to remain largely undiscovered and unread until long after his death. His work is existential in the genre of Camus or Sartre ("I think, therefore, I am a mustache.") He is dark, at times, but his introspection is oceanic in its breadth, depth and turbulent existential Angst. His writing has been described as "semi-fiction" and "anti-literature" by his translator. Great writers inevitably challenge the logic of traditional syntax as well as the genres in which they write to transform their genres by the genius of their innovative literary styles which become legacies in themselves. Pessoa writes in fragments which are neither fiction nor poetry but are autobiographical and as such show his disconnect both with life and his own art -- there is no real flow between one fragment and the next like life itself in his existential worldview. He considered his life "an intermission with band music." He also wrote in heteronyms under several noms de plume as if to say he couldn't really even attest to his own single identity as a writer. His fragments are deep, consuming, intellectual dives into his own everyday life. Normally, autobiography is a sign of an immature writer, which Pessoa clearly is not. He writes about his dull job as an accountant among Lisbon's streets and his sightings while smoking at outdoor cafes as well as about thunderstorms, solitude, dreams, the absurdity and futility of life, art, sex, JJ Rousseau and his work. My only criticism of Pessoa comes from his odd observations and poor advice about sex. His translator, Richard Zenith, believes it was possible that Pessoa died a virgin. I make it a practice never ever to take advice on sex from priests, nuns and lifelong virgins. Richard Zenith's translation is truly luminous and he brings rich nuance into the discourse of every line. Like my copy of "The Recognitions" by William Gaddis, I have underlined fragments on nearly every page because it is so deeply relevant, honest and compelling in its pure intellectual grandeur. Here are a few favorite passages which stand out for me from "B of D": "Irony is the first sign that our consciousness has become conscious and it passes through two stages: the one represented by Socrates, when he says, "All I know is that I know nothing' and the other represented by Sanches, when he says, 'I don't even know if I know nothing.'" "No one understands anyone else... However much one soul strives to now another, he can know only what is told him by a word -- a shapeless shadow on the ground of his understanding... I love expressions because I know nothing of what they express." "I don't know the meaning of this journey I was forced to make, between one and another night, in the company of the whole universe... We achieve nothing. Life hurls us like a stone, and we sail through the air saying, 'Look at me move.'" "The only attitude worthy of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes is useless, to observe a discipline he knows is sterile, and to apply certain norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought that he considers utterly inconsequential." "All life is a dream. No one knows what he's doing, no one knows what he wants, no one knows what he knows. We sleep our lives, eternal children of Destiny. That's why, whenever this sensation rules my thoughts, I feel an enormous tenderness that encompasses the whole of childish humanity, the whole of sleeping society, everyone, everything. It's an immediate humanitarianism, without aims or conclusions, that overwhelms me right now. I feel a tenderness as if I were seeing with the eyes of a god. I see everyone as if moved by the compassion of the world's only conscious being. Poor hapless men, poor hapless humanity! What are they all doing here?" He worked uselessly every business day for a brute capitalist and recognized by night that his writing was utterly hopelessly, inscrutably and irretrievably futile. The miracle, and the sense of this should not be lost upon you, is that every day he still writes anyway like Van Gogh painting despite making only one sale in his lifetime. I recognized Pessoa instantly from the first few fragments of his life in "B of D": I am Pessoa. And he is also you. "Book of Disquiet" is life changing. I can't remember ever having been so disappointed to see a book come to an end: it's that good. I implore you to read this immortal literary work of genius by Pessoa. It may be absurd, and even futile, to do so but sometimes the best answer to both is simply to be just as absurd.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing book!
*by D***E on December 14, 2025*

Arrived in great condition.

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)
- A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems
- I Have More Souls Than One (Penguin Modern)

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*Product available on Desertcart Romania*
*Store origin: RO*
*Last updated: 2026-02-20*