Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Paulo Coelho Books
Paulo Coelho Pilgrimage
Before he became a writer, Coelho had passed the test which determined his further life. Brazilian a writer - puzzle did on foot a way in the length of seven hundred kilometers on ancient medieval road to Compostella, city where the followers of the Christian doctrine go to till now.
In his first book "Diary of the Magician (Pilgrimage)" the writer shared with us his secret impressions about self-knowledge, about that spiritual awakening which he felt during his pilgrimage.
Without that wandering there wouldn't be either legendary "Alchemist", or scandalous "Eleven minutes", or vital "Book of the Warrior of Light.
Paulo Coelho Devil and Miss Prym
Inhabitants of a village are full of greed cowardice and fear. It is a man who is pursued by phantoms of his painful past. It is a young woman who is in search of happiness.
Within one intense week full of events the problems of life, death and power appeared before each of them and everyone had to choose his/her own way. Will they choose kindness or evil?
Paulo Coelho Alchemist
"Alchemist" is a favorite book of the rich and the poor in 117 countries of the world.
To achieve an embodiment of the destiny is the only real duty of the person... All people while they are still young know the destiny... But eventually mysterious force begins to convince them that to achieve an embodiment of their destiny is impossible.
This force seems to be spiteful, but actually it specifies to the person how to embody the destiny. It prepares his spirit and his will for it. On this planet there is one great true: when you really wish something, you will achieve it; in fact such desire had arisen in the soul of the Universe. And it also is your applicability on the Earth.
Paulo Coelho Zahir, The
It is quite probable, that soon critics will name "Zahir" to be the best of the well-known Brazilian writer's novels. However, it happened almost with each new book of Paulo Coelho. And sensational "Alchemist", and vital "Veronica decides to die", and scandalous "Eleven minutes" - all these products in due time were declared to be the thing due to which the name of the author remains in centuries.
But "Zahir" is not just the next best seller. It is the book of personal revelation, something like a confession submitted as a subject narration. The main hero - a popular writer, once a native of the backward country "where even there is no own literary tradition", hippie and addict, and nowadays a respectable inhabitant of France, rich and known - so looks like Coelho himself, that it will be difficult for reader to distract from the idea, that the story goes about the invented character, but not about the author.
But "Zahir" is not just the next best seller. It is the book of personal revelation, something like a confession submitted as a subject narration. The main hero - a popular writer, once a native of the backward country "where even there is no own literary tradition", hippie and addict, and nowadays a respectable inhabitant of France, rich and known - so looks like Coelho himself, that it will be difficult for reader to distract from the idea, that the story goes about the invented character, but not about the author.
Paulo Coelho Warrior of Light
"Book of the Warrior of Light" invites each of us to plunge into the world of our dream, to perceive unpredictability of life easily and to be worthy of our unique destinies. Paulo Coelho helps each of us by a unique style to find out our own warrior of light in ourselves.
Short inspiring parables invite us to take on a way of the warrior, on the way of those who appreciate magic of life; those who admit their defeats and do not stop; those who search for Their Path and find it.
Short inspiring parables invite us to take on a way of the warrior, on the way of those who appreciate magic of life; those who admit their defeats and do not stop; those who search for Their Path and find it.
Paulo Coelho Eleven minutes
"I aspire to overtake love, and it is painful for me to think of people to whom I gave my heart. And still now it is obvious, that people exciting my heart, left my body to be indifferent; those who managed to excite my body, left my heart to be indifferent ".
In this diary note seventeen-year-old Maria, the heroine of the last novel of Paulo Coelho "Eleven minutes", opens the purpose of those searches to which this touching and exciting book is devoted. Maria was disappointed in love and sex, and an image of two in love, merged with soul and a body in ideal harmony, becomes an unattainable Utopia for her.
In this diary note seventeen-year-old Maria, the heroine of the last novel of Paulo Coelho "Eleven minutes", opens the purpose of those searches to which this touching and exciting book is devoted. Maria was disappointed in love and sex, and an image of two in love, merged with soul and a body in ideal harmony, becomes an unattainable Utopia for her.
Paulo Coelho By the River Piedra
"On the bank of Rio-Pjedra..." is the first of the novels of the trilogy "On the seventh day" which also consists of "Veronica decides to die" and "Devil and Senioritis Prim". All three novels tell us about one week from the life of the young women who suddenly found themselves before a call which is necessary to be replied immediately. Her life was changed forever when she met a childhood friend.
Paulo Coelho The Fifth Mountain
"The fifth mountain" is a masterful and fascinating story about a 23-year Ilia-prophet living in IX century AD. Because of the threat of execution Ilia had to leave native country. He finds a shelter in a fine ancient city of Akbare, in the home of a young widow and her son.
It is painfully difficult for Ilia to keep the sanctity in the world tormented by tyranny and wars, and else he has to choose between the love which has opened to him for the first time and deep feeling of duty...
Describing drama adventures in the bright and chaotic world of the Near East, Paulo Coelho turns the story about the prophet Ilia into an extraordinary touching poem about test of human belief. "The fine fairy tale about destiny... "
It is painfully difficult for Ilia to keep the sanctity in the world tormented by tyranny and wars, and else he has to choose between the love which has opened to him for the first time and deep feeling of duty...
Describing drama adventures in the bright and chaotic world of the Near East, Paulo Coelho turns the story about the prophet Ilia into an extraordinary touching poem about test of human belief. "The fine fairy tale about destiny... "
Paulo Coelho Veronica Decides to Die
"Veronica Decides to Die" is a fine and encouraging giving force book. It is written in excellent style and full of ironical metaphors. It is a realistic story about love for life in front of the death, calling to perceive every day as a miracle.
Credits to: http://books.coelhopaulo.com/
Paulo Coelho Quotes
Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.
Beauty is the greatest seducer of man.
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.
If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.
Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.
Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.
Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.
No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes.
One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.
The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.
The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.
We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.
When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.
You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
Paulo Coelho (guardian.co.uk)
1947-
"I believe in the concept of 'anima mundi' (soul of the world), where each person, through total dedication to what he does, comes into contact with the inspiration of the universe."
Birthplace
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Education
Unknown, although he did win the school poetry prize before three stints in psychiatric hospitals as a young adult.
Other jobs
Journalist; lyricist on a number of Brazilian pop hits; and artistic director of CBS in Brazil.
Did you know?
Before starting each new book, Coehlo looks for a white feather. As he prints out the first draft he touches the plume to each page.
Critical verdict
The popular verdict is unequivocal. Coelho is one of the world's biggest selling authors. Over 40m copies of his books have been sold and they have been translated into 55 languages and published in 140 countries. Fans describe his books as "life-changing" but critics tend to be more sniffy about the simplicity of his work, suggesting that he is pandering to the lowest common denominator of new age gullibility. All his books use symbols, dreams and archetypes to convey simple but universal truths.
Recommended works
Coelho's classic work is his first, The Alchemist. It is the tale of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world to find treasure, and sets out to realise his dream. Coelho's later novels, such as Veronika Decides to Die and The Devil and Mrs Prym are considered to be a little more complex. All his works attempt to tackle fundamental questions relating to the human condition - good versus evil, joy and despair, light and dark.
Influences
His use of symbolism is inspired by his involvement in Regnus Agnus Mundi, a tiny sect with Catholic origins dating from 1492, which studies symbolic language. The direct inspiration for his early work was his 1986 pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. His literary influences are harder to pin down.
Now read on
If it is the simplicity of Coelho's work that grabs you, try other fables such as Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull or The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. If spiritual journeys are your bag, try Carlos Castaneda. For more complex explorations of metaphysics, go for Milton, Blake or Philip Pullman's Northern Lights trilogy.
Adaptations
None, through his choice. Coelho has made a US$2m dollar offer to Warner Bros to buy back the only film rights he has ever sold, those to The Alchemist.
Paulo Coelho (Goodreads)
Paulo Coelho
URL
Born
August 24, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Gender
male
Website
Genre
Influences
Khalil Gibran Henry Miller Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Amado
Member since
January 2008
About this Author
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 theatre director and actor, lyricist and journalist. 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 best selling 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 entitle 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), the compilation of traditional tales in Stories for parents, children and grandchildren (2001), Eleven Minutes (2003), The Zahir (2005), The Witch of Portobello (2006) and Winner Stands Alone (to be released in 2009). During the months of March, April, May and June 2006, Paulo Coelho traveled to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella in 1986. He also held surprise book signings - announced one day in advance - in some cities along the way, to have a chance to meet his readers. In ninety days of pilgrimage the author traveled around the globe and took the famous Transiberrian train that took him to Vladivostok. During this experience Paulo Coelho launched his blog Walking the Path - The Pilgrimage in order to share with his readers his impressions. Since this first blog Paulo Coelho has expanded his presence in the internet with his daily blogs in Wordpress, Myspace & Facebook. He is equally present in media sharing sites such as Youtube and Flickr, offering on a regular basis not only texts but also videos and pictures to his readers. From this intensive interest and use of the Internet sprang his bold new project: The Experimental Witch where he invites his readers to adapt to the screen his book The Witch of Portobello. Indeed Paulo Coelho is a firm believer of Internet as a new media and is the first Best-selling author to actively support online free distribution of his work.
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpawlu kuˈeʎu]; born August 24, 1947) is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist.
Biography
Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with "My dear, your father is an Engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?" After researching, Coelho concluded that a writer "always wears glasses and never combs his hair" and has a "duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation," amongst other things. At 17, Coelho's introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. 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 becoming immersed in the drug culture of 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 Paulo being associated with satanism and occultism, due to the content of some songs. In 1974, Coelho was arrested and tortured for "subversive" activities 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.
In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a turning point in his life. On the path, Coelho 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 who 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.
Writing career
In 1982 Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make any kind of impact. In 1986 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." After making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986, Coelho wrote The Pilgrimage. The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house who made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint. He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida, The Alchemist became a Brazilian bestseller. The Alchemist has gone on to sell more than 110 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into more than 70 languages, the 71th being Maltese, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.
Since the publication of The Alchemist, Coelho has generally written one novel every two years including By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, Like the Flowing River, The Valkyries and The Witch of Portobello. This dates back to The Pilgrimage; while trying to overcome his procrastination of launching his writing career, Coelho said "If I see a white feather today, that is a sign that God is giving me that I have to write a new book." Coelho found a white feather in the window of a shop, and began writing that day.
In total, Coelho has published 26 books. Two of them -- The Pilgrimage and The Valkyries -- are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are fictional, although rooted in his life experiences. Others, like Maktub and The Manual of the Warrior of Light, are collections of essays, newspaper columns, or selected teachings. In total, Coelho has sold more than 100 million books in over 150 countries worldwide, and his works have been translated into 67 languages. He is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author.
Currently, Coelho publishes short stories for Ode Magazine. Every issue devotes a page to Coelho for his writing pleasure.
Adaptations
Several of Coelho's books have been adapted into other media.
In 2003, Warner Bros. bought the rights to the film adaptation of The Alchemist. The project stalled and the movie never materialized, reportedly for problems with the script. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Harvey Weinstein announced that he had bought the rights to the film and will serve as its producer. Laurence Fishburne is set to direct, and to play the eponymous character. The movie will have a reported budget of $60 million. Veronika Decides to Die has also been adapted into a screenplay by Das Films with Muse Productions and Velvet Steamroller Entertainment. The film began shooting on May 12, 2008 with Emily Young directing and Sarah Michelle Gellar starring.
In June 2007, Paulo Coelho announced The Experimental Witch Project, a collaborative project based on The Witch of Portobello.
File sharing
Paulo Coelho is a strong advocate of spreading his books through peer-to-peer file sharing networks. A fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online. Sales of his book jumped from 3,000 to one million in three years, with no additional promotion or publicity from his publishers. Coelho took to pirating his own books on Pirate Bay. Coelho provides free translations of many of his books He was caught by the head of HarperCollins, Jane Friedman, who noticed that one of the unauthorized versions Coelho linked to had notes from his own manuscript. The two reached a compromise: each month a new novel can be read for free on the publisher's website. Due to the openness regarding his content, author Jeff Jarvis named Coelho 'the Googliest author' in his book What Would Google Do.
Personal life
Violinist Yehudi Menuhin and author Paulo Coelho, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, in 1999Coelho and his wife Christina Oiticica split their time between Europe and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a Roman Catholic and although he attends Mass, he disagrees with the Pope on several issues, both political and social.
In 1996, Coelho founded the Paulo Coelho Institute, which provides aid to children and elderly people with financial problems. In September 2007, Coelho was named a Messenger of Peace to the United Nations.
- Member of the Board of the Shimon Peres Center for Peace
- UNESCO special counsellor for “Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences”
- Board Member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
- Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
- Member of INI International Advisory Council - HARVARD INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION INITIATIVE
- Member of the Board, Doha Center of Media Freedom
- Advisory Board Member, Maybach Foundation.
On May 9, 2006,in Sofia, Bulgaria, Paulo Coehlo was awarded by the President of Bulgaria Georgi Parvanov the "The Honorable Award of the President of the Republic".
Credits to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho
Credits to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Coelho
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