Paulo Coelho de Souza (Portuguese: [ˈpawlu kuˈeʎu]) was born on August 24, 1947. He is a Brazilian songwriter and author. Since 2002, he has been part of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. His 1988 book, The Alchemist, is a best-selling book around the world.

Early life

Paulo Coelho was born on August 24, 1947, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a school run by the Jesuit religious order. When he was 17 years old, his parents sent him to a mental hospital. He ran away from the hospital three times before being released when he turned 20 years old.

His parents wanted him to study law, so he enrolled in law school. This made him give up his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he left law school and lived as a hippie, traveling to places such as South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe. In the 1960s, he began using drugs.

Career

After returning to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, writing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Raul Seixas. In 1974, Coelho was arrested for “subversive” activities and was tortured while in custody. He also worked as an actor, journalist, and theatre director before becoming a writer.

In 1982, Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which did not sell well. In 1986, he helped write The Practical Manual of Vampirism, but later tried to remove it from stores because he believed it was of poor quality. Also in 1986, Coelho walked the Camino de Santiago in northwestern Spain. He later described this experience as a moment that changed his spiritual life. Afterward, he wrote The Pilgrimage, which was published in 1987.

The next year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house that printed only 900 copies and did not reprint it. Later, he found a larger publisher, and The Alchemist became more successful after the publication of his next book, Brida. HarperCollins published The Alchemist in 1994. It later became an international bestseller. In a 2009 interview with Forward Magazine, Coelho said the Sufi tradition influenced him, especially when writing The Alchemist and The Zahir.

In 2016, Kobe Bryant, a basketball player, contacted Coelho to discuss writing a children’s book together. Months before Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash in January 2020, they began working on the book. After Bryant’s death, Coelho decided to stop the project.

Four of Coelho’s novels—The Pilgrimage, Hippie, The Valkyries, and Aleph—are based on his own life, while most of his other books are fictional. Other books, such as Maktub, The Manual of the Warrior of Light, and Like the Flowing River, include collections of essays, newspaper columns, or teachings.

Reception

His books have been published in more than 170 countries and translated into 83 languages. His books have sold 320 million copies.

Although Coelho calls himself Catholic, some people say his ideas do not match Catholic beliefs because they include New Age, pantheist, and relativist ideas. Some reviews of his later books describe them as not very deep.

The biographical film Paulo Coelho's Best Story (Não Pare na Pista) was made together by Brazil’s Dama Filmes and Spain’s Babel Films. Two actors play different ages of Coelho in the film. The movie was filmed in Portuguese and had its first showing in Brazil in 2014. It was shown in other countries in 2015.

Personal life

Coelho married the artist Christina Oiticica in 1980. Before this, they lived in Rio de Janeiro for half the year and in a French country house in the Pyrenees for the other half. They now reside in Geneva, Switzerland.