About Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and attended a Jesuit school. At 17, Coelho's parents committed him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho was born into a Catholic family, and his parents were strict about religion and faith. 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. At 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 a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started using drugs in the 1960s.

Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs. He is often accused that these songs were 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 by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.

Coelho married artist Christina Oiticica in 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year in Rio de Janeiro and the other half in a country house in the Pyrenees Mountains of France, but now the couple reside permanently in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1986 Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage. 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 in The 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. Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

The Pilgrim – Story of Paulo Coelho is the international title for the biographical film Não 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, told Screen International: "The film tells the story of a man who has a dream. It's a little like Alice in Wonderland – he's someone who is too big for his house." The film, shot in Portuguese, had its premiere in Brazilian Theaters in 2014 and was internationally distributed in 2015

Books by Paulo Coelho

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Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the

25,000 TZS

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This book is about Linda going through her 30's, living in Switzerland with a loving and wealthy husband and two kids. A professional woman working as a journalist. Her life is so very perfect, yet she feels boredom and unhappy due to her monotonous

20,000 TZS

Publisher: Random House

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Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that "love is a te

25,000 TZS

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The incredible new novel from internationally bestselling author of The Alchemist After lying undiscovered for over 700 years, a manuscript holding the answers to a citys final questions is unearthed from a cave in Cairo. Centuries before, on the eve

25,000 TZS

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In The Archer we meet Tetsuya, a man once famous for his prodigious gift with a bow and arrow but who has since retired from public life, and the boy who comes searching for him. The boy has many questions, and in answering them Tetsuya illustrates t

21,000 TZS

Publisher: Penguin

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A breathtaking collection of reflections from one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho. In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist , offers his personal reflections on a wide range o

22,000 TZS

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Paulo Coelho’s By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept is a poignant and poetic story that talks about the depth of love and life and includes elements of paganism and female aspect of divinity.

The protagonist of the story is an independent you

22,000 TZS

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The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho is a parable from 1987 that delves into self-exploration and finding one's true path. The story begins in 1986, when the author fails his initiation into the order Regnus Agnus Mundi (RAM). He is informed that in order

25,000 TZS