Paulo Coehlo Celebrates 20th Anniversary of His Best-Selling Novel `The Alchemist’
You are an author. You finish writing a novel and it is released to the public. But sales are slow. Did you know that your publisher could drop not only you as a writer, but also the book as a whole? That’s exactly what happened to Brazilian author Paulo Coelho in 1988 with his second completed work, The Alchemist.
Although his publisher had no faith, Coelho forged on with the project and it eventually became a world-renowned bestseller. It is one of the best-selling books of all time, and has sold around 65 million copies in about 56 different languages.
This month, Coelho celebrates the 20th anniversary of the release of the novel. The Alchemist encourages the reader to believe in dreams and follow through with them, no matter how unattainable they may seem. Santiago, the main character, begins the story with a literal dream of his own, telling him to search for treasure and head to the Egyptian pyramids. His journey there epitomizes the saying: it’s not where you’re going, but how you get there.
The celebration has begun, with videos and blogs from Coelho, information about the book and author, and more online at Harper Collins Publishers.
The festivities culminate with The Alchemist Live on Wednesday, September 17 at 3:00 p.m. EST. Readers are invited to participate via phone or Web chat as listeners ask questions, and Paulo discusses both his own personal legend and the story behind the novel.
The show will last an hour and a half, and is part of Blog Talk Radio’s Authors on Air program.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] were not originally published in English such as The Alchemist (1988, Portugeuse) by Paulo Coehlo and The Little Prince (1943, French) by Antoine de [...]