PAULO COELHO: journey from Mental institution to genius world record book seller writer

Paulo Coelho ( born August 24, 1947), is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist. He is the recipient of numerous international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. The Alchemist, his most famous novel, has been translated into 80 languages. The author has sold 175 million copies worldwide and is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author.

BIOGRAPHY: 

As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded, "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?".

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.

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 started using drugs in the 1960s.

Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist, and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.

THE TURNING POINT:

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 whom 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.

Paulo has a daughter, Charlotte, who inspired "Life positive". He is married to this day.

WRITING CARRIER:

In 1982 Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make a substantial impact.

 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.

The Alchemist took off. Harper Collins, the biggest publishing House in the United States, decided to publish the book in 1994. Then, it became first a Brazilian bestseller, later a world-wide phenomenon

The Alchemist has gone on to sell more than 65 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into 80 different languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.

The Alchemist, easily known as his most successful story, is a story about a young shepherd who follows his spiritual journey to the Egyptian pyramids in search of a treasure.

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,Brida, The Valkyries, The Winner Stands Alone, The Zahir,The Witch of Portobello, Aleph (novel),Manuscript Found in Accra and Adultery.

n total, Coelho has published 30 books. Three of them – The Pilgrimage,The Valkyries and Aleph – are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are fictional, although rooted in his life experiences.^[6] 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 175 million books in over 170 countries worldwide, and his works have been translated into 80 languages. He is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author.

Coelho also writes up to three blog posts a week at his blog.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND APPS:

Paulo Coelho is the writer with the largest community online. The author has more than 25 million fans only on his Facebook main page and more than 10 million followers on Twitter. He also has accounts on Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr, among others. He manages his own social communities and has a strong interaction with his readers. Coelho discussed his relationship with readers through social media platforms with The Wall Street Journal in August 2014.

his official blog: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/