The Autobiography of M.

Love all of it. Love all that you’ve never known. Love all that was given to you. Love all that was denied to you. Love the coldness already nesting in your hands. They’re almost human! Bark out your despair. Speak, Dog, speak. Let us hear all that you’ve learnt and all that you still ignore. Weep and love all that you have not yet understood. Learn, Dog and Bastard, to speak anew. Learn to walk under the clouds, under the sun and under the shadows cast by every dog, bastard and human bred, born and abandoned before you on this broken earth. They are your family. They are your friends. They speak in the speechless roar of grace. Their laughter floods the world. Their eyes are the sea which drowns you. Their love is the fate which already knows you. Rise and weep now, Dog. See yourself. See yourself at last. Weep and rise now, sweet, sorrowful, broken Dog, Bastard, Human. Life awaits.

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The Autobiography of M. is the third volume of a trilogy whose first and second volumes, A Mala Anarquista, Fernando Pessoa, Babel e a Comuni- dade Vindoura (Colibri, 2019) and Discurso do Bastardo (Colibri, 2021), can be described as textual bodies made of essays, speculative reflection, idiosyncratic prose and genre transgressions authored by the fictional M. The present Autobiography is, in turn, a fictionalized account – written entirely in English – of M.s life, turmoil, existential growth and erotic awakening. It is also the culmination, as well as the source- book, of M.’s trajectory from the condition of bastardy to one of emancipated self-performance. However, the descriptor autobiography is equivocal. It would be more exact to say that this volume is composed of a mosaic of voices – that of the Philosopher, the Counselor (or Chorus), the Minotaur and M. himself – who co-write M.’s autobiography. (from Author’s Foreword)