Paulo Coelho was born on 24 August 1947 inRio de Janeiro,Brazil, and attended aJesuit school. At age 17, Coelho's parents committed him to amental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20.[3][4] 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."[5]
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 ahippie, travelling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started usingdrugs in the 1960s.[6][7]
Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics forElis Regina,Rita Lee, and BrazilianiconRaul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs.[8] He is often accused of these songs being rip-offs of foreign songs not well known in Brazil at the time.[9] In 1974, by his account, he was arrested for "subversive" activities and tortured[10][11] by theruling military government, who hadtaken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics asleft-wing and dangerous.[5] Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.[8]
In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus-mileRoad of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.[6][12] On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically inThe Pilgrimage.[13] 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 inThe 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."[14] Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.
In 1982, Coelho published his first book,Hell Archives, which failed to make a substantial impact.[8] In 1986, he contributed to thePractical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves since he considered it "of bad quality."[8] After making the pilgrimage toSantiago de Compostela in 1986, Coelho wroteThe 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.[13] The following year, Coelho wroteThe 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.[15] He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next bookBrida,The Alchemist took off.HarperCollins decided to publish the book in 1994. Later, it became an international bestseller.[16] In a 2009 interview with the SyrianForward Magazine, Coelho stated that theSufi tradition had been an influence on him, particularly when writingThe Alchemist and laterThe Zahir.[17]
Since the publication ofThe Alchemist, Coelho has generally written at least one novel every two years. Four of them –The Pilgrimage,Hippie,The Valkyries andAleph – are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are broadly fictional.[6] Other books, likeMaktub,The Manual of the Warrior of Light andLike 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.[18] On 22 December 2016, Coelho was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 200 most influential contemporary authors.[19]
Reactions to his writing have not been withoutdissension. Though he was raised in aCatholic family and describes himself as of that faith even now, his stance has been described as incompatible with the Catholic faith, because of itsNew Age,pantheist andrelativist contents.[20] And whatever his sales, reviews of Coelho's later work consistently note its superficiality.[21][22][23]
In 2016, he was contacted by basketball playerKobe Bryant, who wanted to discuss a children's book project with him. Some months beforeBryant'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.[24][25]
The Pilgrim – Story of Paulo Coelho is the international title for the biographical filmNão 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, toldScreen International: "The film tells the story of a man who has a dream. It's a little likeAlice in Wonderland – he's someone who is too big for his house." The film, shot inPortuguese, had its premiere in Brazilian theatres in 2014 and was internationally distributed in 2015.[26]
Coelho married the artistChristina Oiticica in 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year inRio de Janeiro and the other half in a French country house in thePyrenees, but now the couple reside permanently inGeneva, Switzerland.[27]
