The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho writes about the fulfillment of human dreams and individual happiness. But he embodies his success stories. Today, the best-selling author, is 70 years old.
The books of Paulo Coelho, one of the most successful contemporary author in Brazil, are not seen on the worldwide book market, on first glance, as the work of a Brazilian writer. However, it could be that exactly this is the largest recipe for success Coelho has proven that With the expectations of the literary roots of his Brazilian writer colleagues, he has broken a long time ago. And his own human to set the philosophical mind.
Coelho’s national independence has made him the most famous author (“The alchemist”), his home country, world-readable in an increasingly networked world. His books have been translated into 81 languages and in 170 countries on the book market appeared. A total of 210 million copies sold are a proud life balance of today’s 70-Year-old Coelho..
Journey to the own I
Paul Coelho is also clear from other Brazilian authors. In his literary works, one encounters the sometimes tropical Lushness in the language, which was characterized, for example, the famous Jorge Amado. And just as great on its distance to the urban violence, in the books of Paulo Lins, the author of the filmed best-selling book “city of God”.
His first books were based on the impressions of his pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. When they came in the 80s on the South American market could not be foreseen the subsequent success. It was only with the publication of his novel “The alchemist”, which appeared in 1988 in Brazil and 1991 in Germany, began his financially successful pilgrimage through the book of acts of this world. The story of the young Andalusian Santiago, wants to learn as a shepherd to the world, became the best-selling Brazilian book of all time, in 18 countries, the title was on the bestseller lists.
Departure from the Kathoiszismus
The 1947 Rio de Janeiro-born Coelho went through this search for the meaning of life itself in several stages. He grew up in a solidly Catholic family, but turned as a young man, of the Religion. As a rebellious Student, he experimented with drugs and was deeply interested in the occult. His parents considered him insane and left him a number of times committed to a mental institution. He processed this experience in his novel “to die Veronika decides”.
His greatest Book: “The alchemist”
In 1977, Paul Coelho, left Brazil and moved with his wife to London for a year, where he tried unsuccessfully to believe, as the author walk. After a short training Experiment as a Director of the record company CBS, he decided to return to Brazil to work exclusively as a writer. In the meantime, he has returned to the Catholic Faith.
Coelho’s religious tourism, ranging from mysticism to monotheism, met with in the Western world on the width of the resonance. Coelho turned into a kind of literary Guru for spiritual messages. His recipe for success is simple and effective: He loses no time with the help of linguistic pirouettes, or psychological analysis, but provides the reader with spiritual narrative materials in accessible language, combined with practical advice for personal life management.
Modern parables about the world
The literary critic Idelber Avelar, Professor of Latin American literature at Tulane University in New Orleans, approaches the phenomenon Coelho with a comparison: “Coelho gives the traditional parable in the commercial literature, a new robe,” he writes. A parabola fascinating readers, because it is simple, understandable and at the same time mysterious. This had been the evangelists in the Bible and the Singers in the middle ages.
It is precisely in this wealth of facets, the stumbling block for the understanding of Coelho’s work, in the opinion of his critics: It is fit neither entirely in the category of “counselor” in the category “literature”. Coelho’s books move at a critical Radius between the bestseller lists and the Teetischen of the Brazilian Academy of literature.
When, after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the interest in literature from Latin America in Germany, and also in the whole of Europe fell, was Paulo Coelho, one of the few commercially successful writers from Brazil, and overtook the previous Brazilian best-selling author Jorge Amado.
The Global Guru
“Paulo Coelho is not considered as the Brazilian author, his work shapes the image of Brazil abroad,” explains the Translator, and literature Professor Berthold Zilly. “Coelho is a globalized, author. Judging by the topics of his books, he could be Europeans, North Americans, or Arabs.” Today, the best-selling author Coelho lives in Switzerland.
But what then explains the success of Coelho in a more religion-skeptical, and secular country like Germany? The Translator Oliver Precht, transmits complex works of other Brazilian authors, such as Oswald de Andrade in German, linked Coelho’s success with diffuse longings, especially in the Western world. The search for a meaning of life, to belong, to General truths and personal destinies.
The books of Coelho, are, in his view, for an ideological movement, the success in isolation from social conditions, and instead, with personal commitment and individual belief associated beliefs. The world’s most successful parable is still the myth of the Self-Made Man – a recipe for success for writers like Paul Coelho.