Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho de Souza (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell,<ref>J C Wells (2008) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Pearson Education Limited.</ref> {{#invoke:IPA|main}}; born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002.<ref name=ABL>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His 1988 novel The Alchemist became an international best-seller.

Early life

Paulo Coelho was born on 24 August 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and attended a Jesuit school. At age 17, Coelho's parents committed him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20.<ref name=marika>Schaertl, Markia The Boy from Ipanema: Interview with Paulo Coelho reposted on Paulo Coelho's Blog. 20 December 2007.</ref><ref name=bnet>Doland, Angela Brazilian author Coelho thrives on contradictions and extremes Oakland Tribune published on The Washington Post. 12 May 2007.</ref> Coelho later remarked that "It wasn't that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn't know what to do... They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me."<ref name=telegraph>Day, Elizabeth A mystery even to himself The Daily Telegraph. 14 June 2005.</ref>

On his parents' wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, travelling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started using drugs in the 1960s.<ref name=lifepositive>An interview with Brazilian writer, Paulo Coelho: Everybody is a Magus Template:Webarchive Life Positive. July 2000.</ref><ref name=newyorker>Life and Letters: The Magus The New Yorker. 7 May 2007.</ref>

Career

Songwriting

Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs.<ref name=officialbio>Biography Template:Webarchive Official Site of Paulo Coelho.</ref> He is often accused that these songs were rip-offs of foreign songs not well known in Brazil at the time.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1974, by his account, he was arrested for "subversive" activities and tortured<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous.<ref name=telegraph/> Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.<ref name=officialbio/>

In 1986 Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.<ref name=lifepositive/><ref name=harpercollins>Teacher's Guide to The Alchemist Template:Webarchive Harper Collins Publisher.</ref> On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage.<ref name=beliefnet>Reiss, Valerie Paulo Coelho Dances with Angels Beliefnet.</ref> In an interview, Coelho stated "[In 1986], I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water – to use the metaphor in The Alchemist, I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer."<ref>Interview with Paulo Coelho BBC World Service Book Club. December 2004.</ref> Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

Writing

In 1982, Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make a substantial impact.<ref name=officialbio/> In 1986 he contributed to the Practical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves since he considered it "of bad quality."<ref name=officialbio/> After making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986, Coelho wrote The Pilgrimage, published in 1987.

While trying to overcome his procrastination about launching his writing career, Coelho decided, "If I see a white feather today, that is a sign that God is giving me that I have to write a new book." Seeing one in the window of a shop, he began writing that day.<ref name=beliefnet/> The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house that made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint it.<ref name=saintjordi>A Brief History of the Book Template:Webarchive Saint Jordi Asociados</ref> He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida, The Alchemist took off. HarperCollins decided to publish the book in 1994. Later it became an international bestseller.<ref name=saintjordi/> In a 2009 interview with the Syrian Forward Magazine, Coelho stated that the Sufi tradition had been an influence on him, particularly when writing The Alchemist and later The Zahir.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Since the publication of The Alchemist, Coelho has generally written at least one novel every two years. Four of them – The Pilgrimage, Hippie, The Valkyries and Aleph – are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are broadly fictional.<ref name=lifepositive/> Other books, like Maktub, The Manual of the Warrior of Light and Like the Flowing River, are collections of essays, newspaper columns, or selected teachings. His work has been published in more than 170 countries and translated into eighty-three languages. Together, his books have sold 320 million copies.<ref>Karen Heller, Meet the writers who still sell millions of books. Actually, hundreds of millions, The Washington Post</ref> On 22 December 2016, Coelho was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 200 most influential contemporary authors.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Reception

Reactions to his writing have not been without dissension. Though he was raised in a Catholic family and describes himself as of that faith even now, his stance has been described as incompatible with the Catholic faith, because of its New Age, pantheist and relativist contents.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> And whatever his sales, reviews of Coelho's later work consistently note its superficiality.<ref>"Adam Mars-Jones finds Paulo Coelho hurtling towards stupidity as he reaches for wisdom in The Zahir", The Observer, 19 June 2005</ref><ref>Rebecca K. Morrison, "New novels fails to stimulate", The Independent, 14 September 2014</ref><ref>Cameron Woodhead, "Paulo Coelho's fictional take on Mata Hari misses the mark", The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 January 2017</ref>

In 2016, he was contacted by basketball player Kobe Bryant, who wanted to discuss a children's book project with him. Some months before Bryant's death in a helicopter crash in January 2020, they started to write the book together, but upon hearing about his death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.<ref>Co-Author of Kobe Bryant Children's Book Deletes Unfinished Draft</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Film

The Pilgrim – Story of Paulo Coelho is the international title for the biographical film Não Pare na Pista, a co-production between Brazil’s Drama Films and the Spanish Babel Films, in which the younger and older Coelho are played by two different actors. One of the producers, Iôna de Macêdo, told Screen International: "The film tells the story of a man who has a dream. It's a little like Alice in Wonderland – he's someone who is too big for his house." The film, shot in Portuguese, had its premiere in Brazilian theatres in 2014 and was internationally distributed in 2015.<ref name="Paulo CoelhoBiopic ‘The Pilgrim’">Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Coelho married artist Christina Oiticica in 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year in Rio de Janeiro and the other half in a French country house in the Pyrenees, but now the couple resides permanently in Geneva, Switzerland.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Bibliography

Year	Portuguese title	English title
1974	Teatro da Educação	Theater For Education
1982	Arquivos do Inferno	Hell Archives
1987	O Diário de um Mago	The Pilgrimage
1988	O Alquimista	The Alchemist
1990	Brida	Brida
1991	O Dom Supremo	The Supreme Gift
1992	As Valkírias	The Valkyries
1994	Maktub	Maktub
	Na Margem do Rio Piedra eu Sentei e Chorei	By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
1996	O Monte Cinco	The Fifth Mountain
1997	Cartas de Amor de um Profeta	Love Letters from a Prophet
	Manual do Guerreiro da Luz	Manual of the Warrior of Light
1998	Veronika Decide Morrer	Veronika Decides to Die
	Palavras Essenciais	Essential Words
2000	O Demônio e a Srta. Prym	The Devil and Miss Prym
2001	Historias para Pais, Filhos e Netos	Fathers, Sons and Grandsons
2003	Onze Minutos	Eleven Minutes
2004	O Gênio e as Rosas	The Genie and the Roses
	Viagens	Journeys
	Vida	Life
2005	O Zahir	The Zahir
	Caminhos Recolhidos	Revived Paths
2006	Ser Como o Rio que Flui	Like the Flowing River
	A Bruxa de Portobello	The Witch of Portobello
2008	O Vencedor Está Só	The Winner Stands Alone
2009	Amor	Love
2010	Aleph	Aleph
2011	Fábulas
2012	Manuscrito Encontrado em Accra	Manuscript Found in Accra
2014	Adultério	Adultery
2016	A Espiã	The Spy
2018	Hippie	Hippie
2020	O Caminho do Arco	The Archer

External links

• Template:Official website