Resumo de The Alchemist

BIOGRAPHY OF PAULO COELHO :
Paulo Coelho, seen by some as an alchemist of words and, by others, as a mass culture phenomenon, is the most influential author of the present century. Readers from over 150 countries, irrespective of their creed and culture, have turned him into a reference author of our time. His books, translated into 56 languages, have not only topped the bestseller lists, but have gone on to become the subject of social and cultural debate. The ideas, philosophy and subject matter covered in his books touch the aspirations of millions of readers searching for their own path and for new ways of understanding the world.
Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 into a middle-class family, the son of Pedro, an engineer, and Lygia, a housewife. t seven, he entered the Jesuit school of San Ignacio in Rio de Janeiro. Paulo came to detest the obligatory nature of religious practice. However, although he hated praying and going to mass, there were compensations. In the school's austere corridors, Paulo discovered his true vocation: to be a writer. He won his first literary prize in a school poetry competition, and his sister, Sonia, recounts how she won an essay prize by entering something that Paulo had discarded in the wastepaper bin.
However, Paulo's parents had very different plans for their son's future. They wanted him to be an engineer and tried to stifle his desires to devote himself to literature. Their intransigence and his discovery of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer aroused Paulo's spirit of rebellion, and he began routinely to flout the family rules. His father took this behaviour as a sign of mental illness and, when Paulo was seventeen, he twice had him committed to a psychiatric hospital, where Paulo underwent several sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.
Shortly after this, Paulo became involved with a theatre group and began working as a journalist. In the eyes of the comfortably-off middle classes of the time, the theatre was a hotbed of immorality. His frightened parents decided to break their promise not to confine him again and hat him readmitted to hospital for the third time. When he came out, Paulo was even more lost and more enclosed in his own private world. In despair, the family called in another doctor who told them: Paulo isn't mad and he shouldn't be in a psychiatric hospital. He simply has to learn how to face up to life. Thirty years after these experiences, Paulo Coelho wrote Veronika Decides to Die.
According to Paulo: 'Veronika Decides to Die was published in Brazil in 1998. By September, I had received more than 1,200 e-mails and letters describing similar experiences. In October, some of the subjects discussed in the book - depression, panic attacks, suicide - were addressed at a conference that went on to have national repercussions. On 22nd January of the following year, Senator Eduardo Suplicy read out some extracts from my book at a plenary session and managed to get approval for a law that had been doing the rounds of the Brazilian Congress for ten years - a law prohibiting arbitrary hospitalisation.'
After this period, Paulo returned to his studies and it looked as if he was finally going to follow the route his parents had prepared for him. Not long afterwards, though, he dropped out and went back to the theatre. This was in the sixties, and the hippie movement had exploded onto the world scene. These new trends took root even in Brazil, ruled at the time by a repressive military regime. Paulo wore his hair long and made a point of never carrying his identity card; for a time, he took drugs, wanting to live the hippie experience to the full. His passion for writing drove him to start a magazine, of which only two issues were ever published.
Around this time, the musician and composer, Raul Seixas invited Paulo to write the words to his songs. Their second record was a huge success and sold more than 500,000 copies. This was the first time Paulo had earned a large amoney. Their partnership continued up until 1976. Paulo wrote more than sixty songs with Raul Seixas, and together they changed the Brazilian rock scene.
In 1973, Paulo and Raul became part of the Alternative Society, an organization that opposed capitalist ideology, defended the individual's right to do what he or she pleased, and also practised black magic. He later described these experiences in The Valkyries (1992).
During this period, they began publishing Kring-ha, a series of comic strips, calling for more freedom. The dictatorship considered these subversive, and Paulo and Raul were detained and imprisoned. Raul was soon released, but Paulo was kept in for longer because he was considered to be the 'brains' behind the comic strips. His problems did not end there however; two days after his release, Paulo was seized as he was walking down the street and taken to a military torture centre where he remained for several days. According to him, he only escaped death by telling them that he was mad and had already been admitted to mental hospitals three times. He started physically harming himself when his kidnappers were there in the room, and, in the end, they stopped torturing him and let him go.

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