Some time ago I had occasion to celebrate Jose Saramago’s novel, The Cave. I just came across an interesting interview with Saramago, where I learned he wrote a novel entitled The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Reis is one of Pessoa’s alter egos.

Excerpt:

But the truth is that we all have to die. To continue living, we have to die. That’s the story of humanity — generation after generation — that we are going to die. There’s nothing dramatic about death except that one loses one’s life. In the world, in a planet that has 6 billion inhabitants, it’s just one moment and it’s over.