Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho was born on August 24, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro into a middle-class Brazilian family, his father Pedro is an engineer, his mother Lígia (Lygia) a housewife. He has a younger sister named Sônia Maria. Paulo Coelho's life was religious from the very beginning. As a seven-year-old boy, he attended the Jesuit school Colégio Santo Inácio in Rio de Janeiro, where he won a prize in a school poetry competition. Coelho studied law against the wishes of his father, who would have liked to see him in his footsteps as an engineer, but interrupted his studies in 1970 to undertake a two-year trip around the world as a hippie through South America, North Africa and Europe. Coelho's subsequent work as a playwright and screenwriter as well as his drug use during this time were sharply condemned by his strict Catholic and conservative parents. His rebellious rebellion against his parents' ideas and goals led them to believe that their son was mentally disturbed. They had him admitted to the psychiatric institution "Casa de Saúde Dr. Eiras" a total of three times (1966, 1967 and 1968), where he was also treated with electroconvulsive therapy. He later described his experience of inpatient psychiatric treatment in his novel Veronika decides to die.

In 1972, Coelho was a member of the "Satanic sect" O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) "for a few months", where, among other things, black magic was practiced. But he was already politically active at that time. Together with the musician Raul Seixas, Coelho became a member of the anti-capitalist Alternative Society in 1973, which propagated freedom and self-determination. During this time, Coelho was involved in a comic series, called Krig-ha, which also advocated for more freedom in the military-ruled Brazilian state. Due to the possible danger of an opposition formation, the military regime arrested the two men in 1974 and Coelho and his then wife Gisa († 2007) were repeatedly subjected to torture. Between 1974 and 1976, he wrote provocative song lyrics together with Raul Seixas, among others. A total of sixty-five rock songs were written, which enjoyed great popularity in Brazil. He wrote further texts for Rita Lee, Elis Regina and Maria Bethânia. Coelho was always interested in a wide variety of alternative life models and views, including the ideas and rites of Hare Krishna and Wicca.

In 1977 he left Brazil and moved with his first wife to London for a year, where he tried unsuccessfully as a writer. After returning to Brazil the following year, he worked for three months as an executive at the record companies Columbia Broadcasting System and PolyGram. He also worked for a short time as an editor for a music magazine and his own underground magazine. He abruptly ended his professional ambitions after three months and separated from his first wife.

On a trip through Europe, Coelho visited the Dachau concentration camp with his girlfriend and later second wife, the painter Christina Oiticica. He reported having had a vision there in which a man appeared to him, who met him two months later in a café in Amsterdam. In conversation, he convinced him to find his way back to the Catholic faith and to embark on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. From 1980 to 1985, Coelho lived in seclusion in an old Spanish order called R.A.M. (Regnum Agnus Mundi) in order to study the Christian symbolic language. The order was of Catholic origin and was founded in 1492 without an official seat. Coelho processed his ascent of the Way of St. James in 1986 – an experience that he sees as a turning point in his life – as well as retreats of the R.A.M. in the book of the same name On the Way of St. James – Diary of a Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which was published a year later.

In 1988, his second book, The Alchemist, followed. In it, he processed the alchemical studies he had pursued for eleven years in the form of a symbolic text, a parable. However, only nine hundred copies of the first edition were sold, whereupon the publisher parted ways with him. Coelho continued to pursue his goal of success as a writer. When a larger publisher, Editora Rocco, became interested in his work, the book Brida was published in 1990. The work attracted great attention from the press and thus also helped the other two books to the top of the bestseller lists. The alchemist was included in the Guinness Book of Records because it blew up sales in Brazil.

In May 1993, the American publisher HarperCollins under the direction of John Loudon launched a first edition of fifty thousand copies of The Alchemist. This breakthrough in the USA was the beginning of its worldwide success. In Hollywood, several production companies were interested in the rights at the same time, which were acquired by Warner Brothers in 1993. The book reached the bestseller lists in various countries and even became the best-selling book of the year in France, among other countries.

In 1994, the book On the Banks of the Rio Piedra I Sat and Cried was published in Brazil, which cemented Coelho's international reputation. In this work, he turned to his feminine side. Two years later, he was awarded the prestigious Super Grinzane Cavour and Flaiano International awards in Italy. With his next novel, The Fifth Mountain, Coelho moved to the publishing house Editorial Objetiva. In the same year, he was appointed Special Representative of the UNESCO project for intercultural dialogue ("Convergences spirituelles et dialogues interculturels").

A year later, his Handbook of the Warrior of Light, a collection of allegorical stories and maxims, was published. This was followed in 1998 by the novel Veronika decides to die. Coelho completed a successful tour, first through Asia, then a second tour through almost all the countries of Eastern Europe in the autumn, which began in Istanbul with the Orient Express and led it via the Bulgarian capital Sofia to Riga in Latvia.

He was awarded the prestigious Crystal Award of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1999. In the same year, Coelho was inducted into the Legion of Honour by the then French Minister of Culture Philippe Douste-Blazy.

In May 2000, Coelho visited Iran at the invitation of the International Centre for Dialog Among Civilizations. In September, his fifth novel, Der Dämon und Fräulein Prym, was published. In the same year, he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

Coelho received the Bambi, the most popular German media prize, in 2001. On July 25, 2002, the greatest award for Brazilian writers followed: he was elected a member of the venerable Academia Brasileira de Letras, based in Rio de Janeiro, which, among other things, has set itself the task of cultivating the Portuguese language. With an inaugural speech in which he pleaded for utopias and a strong faith, he took office at the Academy on October 28, 2002. In Germany, he received the Planetary Consciousness Award of the Club of Budapest in Frankfurt am Main in the same year and the Corine International Book Prize for Fiction in Munich. At the beginning of the year, Coelho traveled to China for the first time, where he visited Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing. On the occasion of the Bogotá International Book Fair, he travelled to Colombia for the first time, then to Russia, Mexico and the Scandinavian countries, where he visited Tanum, Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm, among others.

In June 2005, on the occasion of the English presentation of his novel The Zahir, the author expressed his displeasure that the producers of Warner Brothers had still not succeeded in adapting the novel The Alchemist, although the studio had owned the rights since 1993. The studio did not want to sell the rights back to Coelho at four times the original retail value, i.e. one million dollars, nor did they accept the draft script by actor and director Laurence Fishburne, which the Brazilian had expressly welcomed. He donated part of his fortune to his self-founded foundation "Instituto Paulo Coelho". With an annual budget of four hundred thousand dollars, Coelho helps favelas, needy children and the elderly, and supports the translation of Brazilian literature into other languages. He also donated considerable sums to children's hospitals and other institutions abroad. On 21 September 2007, he was appointed Messenger of Peace by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. With his institute, which Coelho founded together with his wife, the international bestselling author has been committed to the underprivileged population in Brazil for years.