Paulo Coelho Fans Club

Author, Philanthropist

Messenger of Peace for UN, UNESCO, Board Member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Brazilian Academy of Letters

writting, entrepreneurship

The Alchemist, The Fifth Mountain, The Zahir, Eleven Minutes, The Manual of The Warrior of Light, The Magician, Fernando Morais

I was born ten thousand years ago

Virgo

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, Pedro, was an engineer, and his mother Lydia was a home-maker. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?" After researching, Coelho concluded that a writer "always wears glasses and never combs his hair" and has a "duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation," amongst other things. At 17, Coelho's introversion and opposition to follow a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. 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.

At his parents' wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream to become a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippy, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and becoming immersed in the drug culture of the 1960s. Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. In 1974, Coelho was arrested and tortured for "subversive" activities by the ruling militia, who viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous.

In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a turning point in his life. On the path, Coelho had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage. In an interview, Coelho stated "[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 who I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer." Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

Among the books he wrote, it was "The Alchemist" that became one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into more than 67 languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.



The Alchemist is about a boy named Santiago who wants to follow his dream of finding a treasure in the Egyptian Pyriramids. Central to the novel is the concept of a Personal Legend. Santiago first learns of one's Personal Legend from The King of Salem, who tells him "It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is." He expounds on this, saying "...there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth." The King also tells Santiago of the importance of following the omens on the journey to realizing one's personal legend.

Fans of Paulo Coelho, wealth creators, entrepreneurs, and those who want to be an alchemist.