Paulo Coelho is a wonderful novelist and he writes eloquently in his novels. He is a Brazilian , born on 24th August , 1947 in Rio De Janeiro . He is a member of Brazilian academy of letters , his full name is Paulo Coelho de Souza . he went to Jesuit school as his parents were catholic . from early age , he has decided that he want to be a writer but his parents never liked his thinking of becoming a writer because for them writer is not a career in Brazil .
At his parents wish , he enrolled for Law school but sson he drop out because he got indulge in drugs and started living like hippies in around 1960s . He was jailed three times for his political activism .
He also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career. In 1930 he married an artist Christina Oiticica , they both are permanently residing in Geneva , Switzerland .
Coelho first published the book in 1980 , Hell Archives but it didn’t gain much impact. But he didn’t lose hope and wrote many novels and in 1988 his novel The Alchemist published which helped him to gain fame , 65 million copies of it were sold. The alchemist is one of the famous novels of Coelho .
The alchemist is a novel about a boy name Santiago who is a young shepherd in Andalusia . The word Alchemist means a person who transform things for the better or a person who practice alchemy , alchemist are famous for converting things into gold . So what happens in this novel is that the boy Santiago has left his home and start grazing sheep , he use to sleep in an abandoned church and he have a recurring dream about pyramids , he explain his dream to a gypsy women after listening she interpret that he must go Egypt as there he will get a buried treasure but he ignore her talk and convince himself that she is just interpreting all this to get money from him . Later he runs into an old man , Melchizedek who encourages him to listen to omens in order to find his treasure and give him two magic stones that are ‘Urim’ and ‘Thummim’ which answer in yes or no . After this talk Santiago makes his mind to start his journey to Egypt and he sells all his sheep and pursues towards Tangier but his journey is not , between his journey he trusts a wrong person who promised him to take Egypt but before they start the journey that person robs Santiago . Although Santiago is a boy but he is mature , he does not think much about it or regret much about it. He decided to work in a crystal shop of crystal merchants . He remain there for 11 months and earn enough money to start his journey again . He join caravan and meets an Englishman who is obsessed with alchemy and wants to be an Alchemist and here for the first time he learns the word Alchemist . He get to know that there is an Alchemist around 200 year old and reside in Al – Fayoum oasis and there stop is on this place only . In Al Fayoum the fall in love with a beautiful girl name Fatima and before starting journey he promised her that he will return soon with treasure and will marry her . In between this he also meets the Alchemist and starts his rest of the journey where the alchemist teaches him the importance of listening to his heart .
Few miles away from the destination the alchemist practices his alchemy to turn lead into gold using Philosopher’s stone , give all gold to him and bid adieu . After reaching his destination he starts digging when two strange men come and start beating him , he tells them about his dream and about buried treasure but they do not believe him and one man asks him to leave as that man also saw the same dream about buried treasure in an abandoned church .
He understands where he will find treasure and in the end he gets the treasure . As he promised to Fatima he married her and also provided some share of the treasure to the gypsy women because without her interpretation he never came to know about the treasure .
So this is all about The Alchemist . The serenity which Coelho provides is hard to find , he makes readers feel like they are the real hero . The Times newspaper commented on this novel that ‘ His books have had a life enhancing impact on millions of people and this is true as a person should not lose temper or hope just like Santiago he also didn’t lose any temper when all his money was robbed and how patiently he managed the situation . Like this there are many more things which a person can learn from Coelho novels and make life beautiful .
