Fower Pessoas

Fower Pessoas is the most original work of translation that you will read this year: a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry by an exciting next-generation Scottish poet. Following his subject’s unique approach to composition, Colin Bramwell puts all four of Pessoa’s heteronyms into a present-day Scots-language vernacular, and so creates a parochial Pessoa for our own times. Bramwell’s adaptation matches his subject’s restless lyricism. It is rare to see a translator go toe-to-toe with their subject in this way. The resulting entanglement makes for some astonishing, full-throated poetry. Readers will be delighted by this witty, emotive and artful reinterpretation of an indispensable European poet. Fower Pessoas not only celebrates Pessoa’s extraordinary range of modes and moods, but also marks the arrival of an outstanding new talent in Scottish poetry.

Colin Bramwell was born in Ayrshire, grew up in Fortrose on the Black Isle and lives in Edinburgh. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Review, Irish Pages, The London Magazine, PN Review, Magma, The Rialto, New Writing Scotland, Interpret, Poetry Scotland and The Scotsman. He was the runner-up for the 2020 Edwin Morgan Prize; his translations of Yang Mu won the 2018 John Dryden Translation Competition; his translation of Ko-Hua Chen’s Decapitated Poetry won the 2024 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. He holds a doctorate in creative writing from the University of St Andrews.