The Pilgrimage paved the way to Paulo Coehlo's international bestselling novel The Alchemist. In many ways, these two volumes are companions—to truly comprehend one, you must read the other.
Step inside this captivating account of Paulo Coehlo's pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one's own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.
Paulo Coelho walks the Camino de Santiago in Spain, seeking a sword with which to fulfill an initiation into an old religious society. Along the way, he is guided by a perspicacious man called Petrus and meets many mysterious characters, some devilish, others magical. Narrator Sean Runnette recounts Coehlo's odd anecdotes and interesting insights with a flat voice, which he attempts to modify somewhat when quoting the motley cast of characters. But they all sound uniform in Runette's rendering. Overall, Runnette interprets Coelho's first-person narrative with little imagination, as if the best way to make this implausible story more believable is to sound dispassionate. R.L.G. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theater director, actor, lyricist, and journalist.
Coelho wrote song lyrics for many famous performers in Brazilian music, such as Elis Regina and Rita Lee, yet he is best known for his work with Raul Seixas. Together they wrote such successes as “Eu nasci há dez mil anos atrás” (“I Was Born Ten Thousand Years Ago”), “Gita,” and “Al Capone.”
His fascination with the spiritual quest dates back to his hippie days, when he travelled the world learning about secret societies, oriental religions, etc. In 1982, Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make any kind of impact. In 1985, he contributed to the Practical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves, since he considered it “of bad quality.” In 1986, Paulo Coelho did the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella, an experience later to be documented in his book The Pilgrimage.
In the following year, Coelho published The Alchemist. Slow initial sales convinced his first publisher to drop the novel, but it went on to become one of the bestselling Brazilian books of all time.
Other titles include: Brida (1990), The Valkyries (1992), By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994), the collection of his best columns published in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo entitled Maktub (1994), the compilation of texts Phrases (1995), The Fifth Mountain (1996), Manual of a Warrior of Light (1997), Veronika Decides to Die (1998), The Devil and Miss Prym (2000), a compilation of traditional tales in Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren (2001), Eleven Minutes (2003), The Zahir (2005), The Witch of Portobello (2006), and a compilation of texts gathered under the title Like a Flowing River (2006).
He also adapted The Gift (Henry Drummond) and Love letters of a prophet (Kalil Gibran).
His work has been translated in 67 languages and edited in more than 150 countries.
