The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho, 1988
A shepherd crosses the Sahara chasing a recurring dream, meeting a king, an alchemist and his own fear, in a fable about whether desire is a compass or a trap.
Paulo Coelho
Published in Brazil in 1988, the novel was slow to sell; its English translation later made Coelho one of the world's most widely read authors.
Feels like hope, wonder and freedom.
The nothing-to-lose freedom of being robbed in a foreign country.
He looked around at the empty plaza again, feeling less desperate than before. This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one…he had already traveled farther than any shepherd he knew. Oh, if they only knew how different things are just two hours by ship from where they are, he thought….As he mused about these things, he realized that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure. “I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure,” he said to himself. Books by Paulo Coelho
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