MARIO DE SA-CARNEIRO

The apparent suicide in 1916 of the writer Mario de Sa-Carneiro causes his friend, the poet Fernando Pessoa, great distress. Pessoa feels compelled to trace Sa-Carneiro's final movements, to understand what could have caused him to lose all hope. Exploring byways of the imagination and ambiguity with the investigator David Mondine and Dr. Abilio Fernandes Quaresma, solver of enigmas, the three men decide to uncover the conclusive certainties which led Mario to poison himself. These suicide investigators travel to Lisbon - Mario's birthplace - and to Paris, talking to strangers and friends who might shed light on the poet's mysterious and sudden decline. As the city wrestles with the grief and tumult of war, the men hold court at the cafes and bistros Mario would have frequented. Their witty, enigmatic and sometimes obscure conversations illuminate the friendship between Mario and Fernando Pessoa, their poetry and their literary ambitions, revealing the tragic end of one of the founders of Portuguese modernism.