Before The Alchemist launched him to worldwide fame, Brazilian
author Paulo Coelho experienced a bumpy writing career. As a teen, Coelho, who admits he
was hostile and isolated at the time, told his parents he wanted to be a writer. The
untraditional career path, coupled with his behavior, led his parents to commit Coelho
to a mental hospital three separate times. After this period, he relented to his
parent’s wishes and enrolled in law school, but dropped out after one year and became a
globetrotting hippie through the 60s and 70s. During this time, Coelho published the
unsuccessful Hell Archives (1982) and contributed to the Practical
Manual of Vampirism (1985), but he mostly immersed himself in the
drug culture and penned song lyrics for Brazilian pop stars such as Elis Regina, Rita
Lee, and Raul Seixas. Despite his lack of success writing books, Coelho made good money
as a lyricist. He could have easily made a career of his job, but a trip to Spain
pointed him down a different path.
This turning point in Coelho’s writing career came in 1982, when he walked Spain’s
road of Santiago de Compostela, or the Way of Saint James, an important medieval
Christian pilgrimage route. During the walk, Coelho had a spiritual awakening that he
chronicled in his second novel, The Pilgrimage (1987). The book had
little impact, but Coelho became determined to make a career as a writer. Coelho found
his concept for his next book, The Alchemist (1988) in a 1935 short
story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges called “Tale of Two Dreamers”. Like
The Alchemist, Borges’ short story revolves around two dreamers in
search of treasure. Coelho sold his book to a tiny Brazilian publishing house, which
printed a miniscule first edition of 900 copies and decided not to reprint
afterward.
The Alchemist achieved commercial success only after Coelho found
a bigger publisher, Rocco, to publish his next book, Brida (1990).
Brida received good press coverage in Brazil, and Coelho’s newfound
popularity launched The Alchemist to the top of the Brazilian
bestseller list. In 1993, U.S. publisher HarperCollins decided to print The
Alchemist, starting with a print run of 50,000 copies. Though that number
was significant at the time, it did not compare to the astounding success the book would
eventually have. Since its U.S. publication, The Alchemist has won the
Guinness World Record for the most translated book by a living author. It has been
translated into 67 languages, has sold over 65 million copies throughout the world, and
has won several international awards, including the United Kingdom’s 2004 Nielsen Gold
Book Award, France’s Grand Prix Litteraire Elle in 1995, and Germany’s 2002 Corine
International Award for fiction.
The unprecedented success of The Alchemist launched Coelho to
international literary fame and, in some circles, notoriety. He has won celebrity fans
from Bill Clinton, to Will Smith, to Madonna, and has written more than twenty
commercially successful books since The Alchemist, many of which have
been inspired by his own life experiences. Despite Coelho’s success, he has his fair
share of detractors. Several writers and critics, including the Brazilian critic Mario
Maestri, accuse him of producing mass-market self-help fables disguised as literature.
Coelho has also distinguished himself by his willingness to share his books over the
Internet for free. His American publisher caught him pirating his own books over several
popular torrent sites and forced him to stop the practice. In return, the publisher
allowed each of his new books to be available on its website for one month after being
released in stores.
Clear connections exist between the story of The Alchemist and
Coelho’s own life story. Just like Santiago, a comfortable shepherd who decided to
abandon everything to pursue a dream, Coelho lived comfortably as a songwriter when he
decided to give up everything to pursue his dream of writing. Just as Santiago suffered
many setbacks and temptations during his journey to Egypt’s pyramids, Coelho suffered a
number of setbacks, including the disappointing reception of The
Pilgrimage and the initial failure of The Alchemist, and
experienced material temptations arising from his financial success as a songwriter.
Yet, just like Santiago, Coelho remained focused on his dream, eventually achieving
literary success beyond his expectation. Interestingly, Coelho didn’t gain fame and
financial success as an author until well after writing The Alchemist.
Although Coelho’s subsequent success more than validates the lesson he communicates
through the story of Santiago’s journey, success such as Santiago finds in The
Alchemist was something Coelho had yet to attain at the time he wrote the
book.
