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Hero
If there is one person whom I would name as my hero, he is Paulo Coelho.
All my life - even when I was a child or teenager, the age when people are most likely to have heroes - I never had a hero. I never had someone whom I truly looked up to and admired, someone whom I considered to have done brave, heroic deeds. Now, in my mid-40s, I've finally found such a person.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer, apparently one of the top 10 authors in the world.
Despite Brazil being a country halfway across the world from me, that I have no experience of, I find myself attracted to certain things Brazilian.
I love bussa nova, which is the music of another Brazilian, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Now,I find myself strongly attracted to the works of Coelho, as well as to him as a person.
I actually find it a bit strange writing this way about him. Like I said, I never had a hero figure before. But this is how I feel.
The Alchemist
It was my friend Anne who introduced me to Coelho. On my birthday, I think it was in 1998, she gave me a copy of his most famous book, The Alchemist.
I did not know at that time how famous the book was. I put it aside, with no real intention to read it. I am not much of a reader. I might read magazine articles, or sections of non-fiction books such as books on natural health. But I very seldom read "story books". I do not have the patience, nor the interest.
Some months later, I picked up the book to take a glance. I ended up reading it right through, almost non-stop.
I was so captivated that, the moment I finished, I went to the bookstore to look for other titles by the same author. What I saw made me flip: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.
It was one of those uncanny "coincidences". About a year or two earlier, I had seen that very book. The unusual title had caught my eye and attracted me enough to make me want to buy, or at least to check it out. Somehow I didn't. Maybe because I was not much of a reader. Maybe because that day I was busy and had merely walked past the book, pausing just long enough to take in the title. Now the book is staring at me right in the face. I bought and read it right away.
Over the next three months, I bought and read every single book by Coelho that had been translated into English. And from that day on, whenever I visited the bookstore, I would pop by the shelf where his books are, to see if there is anything new.
I found out later that my experience was not unique. If you visit the Paulo Coelho Discussion Group, you will meet many other people who, like me, ended up reading all of Coelho's books after an initial encounter.
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Briefly, these are Coelho's book that have been translated into English:
The Alchemist is a fable about finding your treasure, and about following your heart, which is a predominant theme throughout his books.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept is a wonderful love story.
The Pilgrimage tells about Coelho's training as a "magician" - a white, as opposed to black magician - as he undertakes a walking pilgrimage from France to Spain, following an ancient route.
The Valkyries is an account of Coelho's 40 days in the desert to meet his angel.
The Fifth Mountain is a story about fate.
Veronika Decides to Die is a story about sanity and madness, based on Coelho's own experiences of having been put twice into a mental asylum.
The Devil and Miss Prym tells about a small village faced with a moral dilemna - to sacrifice one person so that the entire village would benefit.
Confessions of a Pilgrim is an interview with Paulo Coelho about his life experiences.
The Abandoned Dream
I'd like here to share a few of the things about Coelho that I remember most.
First is his abandoned dream.
In the introduction to his story about fate, The Fifth Mountain, Coelho writes about a decision he had made on the eve of his 30th birthday. He was, at that time, a very successful music company producer. He was due to travel to the US to meet the president of the company, presumably for a promotion.
That night, he went to bed with what he calls a "certainty". He gave up his dream of becoming a writer. After all, he was both successful and happy in his job as a music producer. And, as "everybody" knows, it was impossible to earn a living as a writer in Brazil. If ever he felt a need to express himself, Coelho thought, he could always write some song lyrics. Or an article for the newspapers. So he abandoned his dream.
The next morning, Coelho received a telephone call from the company president. He was fired. With no reasons given. For the next two years, he could not find an equivalent job in spite of his previous successes and good track record.
Uncanny, huh?
Blackness
Second is his brush with evil.
Coelho certainly had an adventurous life and he had done many things which the average person would not even dream of - his Pilgrimage across France and Spain, the 40 days he spent in the Arizona desert to meet his angel, as told in The Valkyries.
The one thing he did which I consider most brave, most heroic, however, is not something that he writes about. He still feels uneasy about it and he talks about it only briefly in Confessions of a Pilgrim.
This was his involvement with evil. He once joined a group which, he said, was so evil that, by comparison, the Church of Satan would be considered mild. Just how evil that is I cannot possibly imagine. Neither can I imagine one incident he related, whereby his whole house was "filled with blackness".
To me, daring to join such a group was truly a brave act. And the remarkable achievement was that Coelho survived the adventure, managed to get out of it, and ended up as a highly spiritual person.
To know more about Paulo Coelho, please visit
Also, please read my essay, The Road to Hell, which re-tells one of Coelho's stories about heaven and hell.