Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life (42 page)

What at first sight had appeared to be an amateur enterprise turned out to be very good business indeed. When the couple sent off the last package of books in the post, Shogun had earned the equivalent of US$187,000. The success of an apparently simple idea encouraged Paulo and Chris to repeat the project on a larger scale. A few weeks later, Shogun announced competitions to select poems to be published in four new anthologies, entitled
Poetas Brasileiros de Hoje
,
A Nova Poesia Brasileira
,
A Nova Literatura Brasileira
and
Antologia Poética de Cidades Brasileiras
. In order to motivate those who had been rejected in the first anthology, Chris sent each of them an encouraging letter in which she explained that the number of poems to be awarded the prize of publication was to rise from 116 to 250:

The Shogun anthologies grew in popularity, and poets of every sort sprang up in every corner of the country. On the evenings when the diplomas and other awards were handed out, there were so many present that the publisher was forced to hire the Circo Voador in Lapa, one of the newest venues in Rio, to accommodate the winning bards and their guests. Chris also organized public events, usually held in busy places, where the authors would recite their prize-winning poetry to passers-by, who would stop, genuinely interested, to listen to the poetry. There was, of course, always some problem, such as those who took a long time to pay or the poet who wrote a letter of protest to the
Jornal do Brasil
:

A week later, the
Jornal do Brasil
published Shogun’s reply in which the director Christina Oiticica stated that the printers who produced their books were the same as those who worked for such publishing giants as Record and Nova Fronteira. As for making money from the anthology, she responded by saying that this was used to finance projects that would never interest large publishers, such as
Poesia na Prisão
(a competition held among prisoners within the Rio de Janeiro prison system), without depending upon public funds: ‘We do not beg for support from the state for our cultural activities. We are independent and proud of the fact, because all of us–publishers and poets–are proving that it is possible for new artists to get their work published.’

The complaints did not seem to be shared by other authors published by Shogun. Many years later, the poet Marcelino Rodriguez recalled proudly in his Internet blog seeing his ‘Soneto Eterno’ included in the publisher’s anthology: ‘My first literary venture was produced by Shogun, owned by Paulo Coelho (who is now our most important writer, although many “academics” do not recognize his worth, perhaps because they do not understand the content of his work) and Christina Oiticica, who is a highly talented artist (I still haven’t forgotten the smile she gave me when I visited the office once).’

The fact is that, as well as encouraging young authors, the project proved to be a successful business enterprise. By organizing four
anthologies a year, Shogun could earn some 160 million cruzeiros a year. Between 1983 and 1986, there was a boom in anthologies and poetry competitions, and so these sums may have been even greater, particularly when Shogun doubled the number of prize-winners. At the age of nearly forty, Paulo’s life finally seemed to be working out. Chris was proving to be a wonderful partner–their relationship grew more solid by the day–and business was flourishing. All that was needed to complete his happiness was to realize his old dream of becoming a world-famous writer. He continued to receive spiritual guidance from Jean, but this did not prevent him from reading about and entering into public debates on esoteric subjects and indulging his old curiosity for vampirism. It was as a vampirologist that, in 1985, he accepted an invitation to give a talk in the largest conference centre in the city, Riocentro, which was holding the first Brazilian Esoteric Fair, an initiative by the guru Kaanda Ananda, the owner of a shop selling esoterica in the Tijuca district in Rio, who had invited Paulo to open the meeting with a talk on vampirism.

When he arrived on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 October, Paulo was greeted by the reporter Nelson Liano, Jr, who had been selected by the Sunday magazine of the
Jornal do Brasil
to interview him. Although he was only twenty-four, Liano had worked on the main Rio publications and, like Paulo, had experimented with every type of drug. If there is such a thing as love at first sight between esoterics, this is what happened between Paulo and Liano. Such was their reciprocal delight in each other’s company that their conversation ended only when Kaanda Ananda told them for the third time that the auditorium was full and that an impatient public was waiting for Paulo. The two exchanged phone numbers and took their leave of each other with a warm embrace. While Paulo went into the auditorium, Liano headed off to have a coffee with his friend Ernesto Emanuelle Mandarino, the owner of the publishing house Editora Eco.

Eco was a small publishing house founded in the 1960s. Although it was unknown in intellectual circles, during its twenty years in existence, it had become a reference point for anyone interested in umbanda and candomblé (the Brazilian forms of voodoo), magic, etc. Over coffee with Mandarino, Liano told him that he had just interviewed a vampirologist.
‘The guy’s called Paulo Coelho and he trained in vampirism in England. He’s talking at the moment to a packed auditorium of people on the subject. Don’t you think it might make a book?’

Mandarino opened his eyes wide: ‘Vampirism? It sounds like something out of the movies. Would a book like that sell? When he finishes his talk bring him over here to the stand for a coffee.’

Minutes after being introduced to Paulo, Mandarino told him point-blank: ‘If you write a book on vampirism, Eco will publish it.’

Paulo replied: ‘I’ll do it, if Nelson Liano will write it with me.’

Mandarino was astonished: ‘But Nelson told me that you had only just met!’

Paulo chuckled: ‘That’s true, but we’re already life-long friends.’

The deal was done. The two left, having agreed to write a book entitled
Manual Prático do Vampirismo
[
Practical Manual on Vampirism
]. The work was to be arranged in five parts, the first and fifth to be written by Paulo, the second and fourth by Liano and the third divided between the two. Paulo and Chris wondered afterwards whether it wouldn’t be better if Shogun published the book, but they were dissuaded from this idea by Liano, who felt that only a publisher of Eco’s standing would be able to market such a book, whereas Shogun’s speciality was poetry anthologies. On the assumption that it would be a best-seller, Paulo demanded changes to Eco’s standard contract. Concerned about inflation, he asked to receive monthly rather than quarterly accounts. Even though Liano was going to write half the book and edit the final text, Paulo asked Mandarino’s secretary to add this clause at the bottom of the contract: ‘Only the name Paulo Coelho will appear on the cover, with the words “Edited by Nelson Liano, Jr.” on the title page under the title.’

In effect, Liano was going to write half the book and edit the whole thing, but was to appear only as its coordinator (and this only on the inside pages). And, following a final addendum suggested by Paulo, he was to receive only 5 per cent of the royalties (0.5 per cent of the cover price of the book), the remaining 95 per cent going to Paulo. As though anticipating that this was going to be the goose that laid the golden egg, Mandarino patiently accepted his new author’s demands and since Liano also made no objections, they signed the contract a week after their first meeting.
However, only Liano handed in his chapters on the agreed date. Saying that he had too much work at Shogun, Paulo had not written a single word of his part. Time went on, and still the text did not appear. It was only after much pressure and when he realized that all deadlines had passed that Paulo finally handed his text to Eco. At the last minute, perhaps feeling that he had been unfair to his partner, he allowed the inclusion of Liano’s name on the cover, but in small print, as though he were not the co-author but only an assistant.

The launch of the
Manual
, with waiters serving white wine and canapés, was held in the elegant Hotel Glória, in front of which, eleven years earlier, Paulo had been seized by the DOI-Codi. The cover, designed by Chris, bore the title in gothic characters over a well-known photograph of the Hungarian-American actor Béla Lugosi who, in 1931, had become world-famous when he played Count Dracula in the Tod Browning film. The texts covered subjects ranging from the origins of vampirism to the great ‘dynasties’ of human bloodsuckers, which were divided into the Romanian, British, German, French and Spanish branches. One chapter explained how to recognize a vampire. At social gatherings this could be done by observing certain habits or gestures. For example, if you come across a person with a particular liking for raw or undercooked meat, who is also studious and rather verbose, you should be on your guard: he could be a true descendant of the Romanian Vlad Tepeş. It would be even easier, the
Manual
explained, to know whether or not you were sleeping with a dangerous bloodsucker because vampires don’t move their pelvis during the sexual act and the temperature of their penis is many degrees below that of ordinary mortals.

The
Manual
concealed some even greater mysteries. None of the guests in the lobby of the Hotel Glória could know that, although his name appeared in larger print than Liano’s on the cover, Paulo had not written a single word, a single syllable, of the 144 pages of the
Manual
. The author never revealed that, under pressure of the deadline and disinclined to keep his part of the agreement, he had secretly taken on someone else to write his parts of the book.

His choice fell on a strange man from Minas Gerais, Antônio Walter Sena Júnior, who was known in the esoteric world as ‘Toninho Buda’ or
‘Tony Buddha’, a somewhat inappropriate name for a very skinny man who never weighed more than 55 kilos. He had graduated in engineering at the Universidade Federal in Juiz de Fora, where he still lived, and had met Paulo in 1981 during a debate on vampirism at the Colégio Bennett in Rio. He had studied subjects such as magic and the occult, had closely followed the career of Paulo and Raul Seixas, and dreamed of resurrecting the old Sociedade Alternativa. He felt greatly honoured at the thought of seeing his name alongside that of Paulo Coelho in a book and he accepted the task in exchange, as he said later, ‘for the price of lunch in a cheap restaurant in Copacabana’. He wrote all the chapters that Paulo was supposed to write.