Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janiero in 1947 and before his career as a best-selling author, he was a playwright, theater director, hippie, and popular songwriter for some of Brazil's leading pop artists. In 1986 he took apilgrimage along that Road of Santiago and this would be the center of theplot of the book, The Pilgrimage, which was published in 1987. His secondbook was named The Alchemist and was published in 1988. This book hasgone to number one in 29 countries and Coelho has been regarded as the mostwidely read contemporary writers. The Alchemist was one of the top teninternational best sellers of 1998. His work has been published in more than100 countries and is translated into 42 different languages. He has beenawarded a variety of prestigious awards from many different countries. Hetoday lives in South America with his family.The story begins when the shepherd boy stopped for the night in achurch with a sycamore tree growing out of the middle. He told of the easygoing life of the shepherd and how his parents had wanted him to become apriest. He went to all the schooling, but at the last minute he changed hismind. He wanted to see the world and he felt that the best way to do this wasto become a shepherd. He said that the life of a shepherd is easy and carefreeand he felt like this was the way he wanted to live. He was anticipating seeingthe daughter of a man who would buy the wool from his sheep when hearrived in the town that he would come to in another couple of days. Hethought that he might actually settle down and get married to this girl if shewould like to. He had been having a recurring dream about him at thepyramids in Egypt. There he would be able to find all of the treasure in theworld and to realize what would come to be called his personal legend.When he reached the next town he went to the fortuneteller and askedher if she could help him out with is problem. She was unclear about what todo, but she made him ...
