Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life (55 page)

When this biography was completed, in February 2008, the A380 was in commercial operation. Given how fast new technology becomes obsolete, it is highly likely that manufacture of the A380 will have ceased long before the hundreds of millions of copies of Paulo Coelho’s books disappear and, with them–despite what the literary critics may think–the profound effect they have had on readers in even the most far-flung corners of the planet.

BOOKS PUBLISHED

Teatro na Educação
(1973)

Arquivos do Inferno
(1982)

Manual Prático do Vampirismo
(1985)

O Diário de um Mago (The Pilgrimage)
(1987)

O Alquimista (The Alchemist)
(1988)

Brida
(1990)

O Dom Supremo
(1991)

As Valkírias (The Valkyries)
(1992)

Na Margem do Rio Piedra eu Sentei e Chorei (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)
(1994)

Maktub
(1994)

O Monte Cinco (The Fifth Mountain)
(1996)

Manual do Guerreiro da Luz (Manual of the Warrior of Light)
(1997)

Cartas de Amor do Profeta
(1997)

Veronika Decide Morrer (Veronika Decides to Die)
(1998)

Palavras Essenciais
(1999)

O Demônio e a Srta. Prym (The Devil and Miss Prym)
(2000)

Histórias para Pais, Filhos e Netos
(2001)

Onze Minutos (Eleven Minutes)
(2003)

O Gênio e as Rosas
(2004)

O Zahir (The Zahir)
(2005)

Ser como o Rio que Flui (Like the Flowing River)
(2006)

A Bruxa de Portobello (The Witch of Portobello)
(2006)

O Vencedor está só (The Winner Stands Alone)
(2008)

Excluding pirate editions, his books have sold over 100 million copies in 455 translations, published in 66 languages and 160 countries.

MAIN PRIZES AND DECORATIONS

Golden Book–Yugoslavia, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2004

Grand Prix Littéraire Elle–France, 1995

Guinness Book of Records–Brazil, 1995/1996

Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres–France, 1996

Livre d’Or–France, 1996

ABERT Prize, Formador de Opinião–Brazil, 1996

Premio Internazionale Flaiano–Italy, 1996

Super Grinzane Cavour Literary Prize–Italy, 1996

Finalist in the International IMPAC Literary Award–Eire, 1997 and 2000

Protector de Honor–Spain, 1997

Comendador da Ordem do Rio Branco–Brazil, 1998

Diploma da Ordem Fraternal do Cruzeiro do Sul–Brazil, 1998

Fiera Del Libro per i Ragazzi–Italy, 1998

Flutuat Nec Mergitur–France, 1998

Libro de Oro for
La Quinta Montaña
–Argentina, 1998

Medaille de la Ville de Paris–France, 1998

Senaki Museum–Greece, 1998

Sara Kubitschek Prize–Brazil, 1998

Top Performance Nacional–Argentina, 1998

Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur–France, 1999

Huésped Distinguido de la Ciudad de Nuestra Señora de la Paz–Bolívia, 1999

Ksi
żka Zagraniczna–Poland, 1999

Libro de Oro for
Guerrero de la Luz
–Argentina, 1999

Libro de Oro for
Veronika Decide Morir
–Argentina, 1999

Libro de Platina for
El Alquimista
–Argentina, 1999

Medalla de Oro de Galicia–Spain, 1999

Crystal Prize of the World Economic Forum–Switzerland, 1999

Crystal Mirror Prize–Poland, 2000

Member of the Pen Club Brazil–Brazil, 2001

Bambi Prize for Cultural Personality of the Year–Germany, 2001

Ville de Tarbes–France, 2001

XXIII Premio Internazionale Fregene–Italy, 2001

Diploma of the Academia Brasileira de Letras–Brazil, 2002

Miembro de Honor–Bolivia, 2002

Club of Budapest Planetary Arts Award in recognition of his literary work–Germany, 2002

International Corine prize for the best work of fiction for
The Alchemist
–Germany, 2002

Prix de la Littérature Consciente de la Planète–France, 2002

Ville d’Orthez–France, 2002

Médaille des Officiers des Arts et des Lettres–France, 2003

Medal from the Lviv Book Fair–Ukraine, 2004

Nielsen Gold Book Award for
The Alchemist
–United Kingdom, 2004

Order of Honour of Ukraine–Ukraine, 2004

Order of Saint Sophia for contribution to knowledge and culture–Ukraine, 2004

Premio Giovanni Verga–Italy, 2004

Golden Book award from the newspaper
Vecernje Novosti
–Serbia, 2004

Budapest Award–Hungary, 2005

Ex Libris award for
Eleven Minutes
–Serbia, 2005

Goldene Feder Award–Germany, 2005

International Author’s Award from DirectGroup Bertelsmann–Germany, 2005

8th Annual International Latino Book Award for
The Zahir
–United States, 2006

I Premio Álava en el Corazón–Spain, 2006

Kiklop Award for
The Zahir
in the Best-Seller of the Year Category–Croatia, 2006

ARTICLES

Weekly articles written by Paulo Coelho are published in 109 publications in 60 countries: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eire, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

CINEMA

The film rights for four of his books have been negotiated with the following American studios:

The Alchemist
(Warner Brothers)

The Fifth Mountain
(Capistrano Productions)

Eleven Minutes
(Hollywood Gang Productions)

Veronika Decides to Die
(Muse Productions)

INTERNET

Apart from his website, www.paulocoelho.com, which is available in sixteen languages, the author has a blog, www.paulocoelhoblog.com, and a Myspace page, www.myspace.com/paulocoelho.

PAULO COELHO INSTITUTE

The Paulo Coelho Institute is a non-profit organization financed entirely from the writer’s royalties and managed by Belina Antunes, the mother of his agent, Mônica. From time to time, Paulo makes large contributions from his other activities. The Institute’s main aim is to give opportunities to underprivileged and excluded members of Brazilian society, particularly children and the elderly. The Solar Meninos da Luz, founded in 1996, is co-sponsored by the Paulo Coelho Institute, which makes an annual contribution of US$400,000. The school offers entirely free education to 430 needy children in the Pavão-Pavãozinho e Cantagalo
favela
in Rio de Janeiro.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book started life at the beginning of 2005 at Saint-Exupéry airport, in Lyons, in the south of France, when I met Paulo Coelho for the first time. As a journalist, I was used to accompanying international names and stars and imagined I would find him surrounded by bodyguards, secretaries and assistants. To my surprise, the man with whom I would spend much of the following three years turned up alone, with a rucksack on his back and dragging a small suitcase on wheels. It was there that the excavation began that would reveal one of the most extraordinary individuals I have ever worked with.

After six weeks at his side, I returned to Brazil. Since the entire course of his life has revolved around Rio, I moved there and spent eight months following the trails left by the writer. I looked for Paulo Coelho everywhere and probed behind the events that had left so many scars. I searched for him in the dark alleys of the roughest areas of Copacabana, among the records of the insane and the ruins of what had once been Dr Eiras’s clinic, in the dangerous world of drugs, in files dating from the years of political repression in Brazil, in satanism, in mysterious secret societies, in his partnership with Raul Seixas, in his family and his genealogy. I talked to friends and those who had fallen out with him, interviewed many of his ex-lovers and spent some time with his present–and, he vows, his last–partner, the artist Christina Oiticica. I rummaged through his life, dug deep into his private affairs, read his will, studied
his medications, read his bank statements, felt in his pockets and searched for the children I imagined must have resulted from his various relationships and love affairs.

I won a bet with him that gave me access to a treasure that he had decided was to be burnt after his death: a trunk that held forty years of diaries, many of them recorded on cassette tapes. I spent weeks closeted in the Paulo Coelho Institute scanning documents, photos, old diaries and letters both received and sent. Once my time in Rio was over, I again accompanied him on trips to various corners of the earth with a recorder slung over my shoulder, listening to his nasal voice and to his comments, and watching that strange tic he has of flicking away non-existent flies from his eyes. I went with him on the road to Santiago de Compostela, I saw how moved he was on meeting a group of ordinary readers in Oñati, in the Spanish Basque country and in Cairo, and I watched him being acclaimed by men in black ties and women in long dresses at banquets held in his honour in Paris and Hamburg.

I put together the pieces left behind by Paulo Coelho throughout his sixty years, and the result is this book. Although the responsibility for everything written here is mine alone, I must acknowledge the help of the dozens of people who helped me along the way. Firstly, my old friend Wagner Homem. I asked him to apply his expertise to organizing the vast quantity of data, interviews and documents that I accumulated during three years of research. He ended up moving into my house, where for ten uninterrupted months he worked on that, as well as reading and re-reading the final text and making valuable suggestions for improving it. My gratitude must also go to two brothers: one putative, Ricardo Setti, who has long been in charge of quality control with regard to my books and whose talent has saved me at the most difficult moments, and one real, Reinaldo Morais, who moved heaven and earth to make sure that the book reached its final destination safely.

I must also thank all those who generously collaborated on this book, the many people I interviewed and the researchers, journalists, trainees and stringers who found and interviewed the individuals who have given life, colour and human warmth to this story. These are: Adriana Negreiros, Afonso Borges, Aldo Bocchini Neto, Alfonso Molinero, Ana Carolina da
Motta, Ana Paula Granello, Antônio Carlos Monteiro de Castro, Armando Antenore, Armando Perigo, The Association of Old Boys of the St Ignatius College, Áurea Soares de Oliveira, Áureo Sato, Beatriz de Medeiros de Souza, Belina Antunes, Carina Gomes, Carlos Augusto Setti, Carlos Heitor Cony, Carlos Lima, Célia Valente, Cláudio Humberto Rosa e Silva, César Polcino Milies, Dasha Balashova, Denis Kuck, Devanir Barbosa Paes, Diego de Souza Martins, Eliane Lobato, Eric Nepomuceno, Evanise dos Santos, Fernando Eichenberg, Firmeza Ribeiro dos Santos, Francisco Cordeiro, Frédéric Bonomelli, Gemma Capdevila, Herve Louit, Hugo Carlo Batista Ramos, Ibarê Dantas, Inês Garçoni, Instituto Paulo Coelho and Sant Jordi Associados, Ivan Luiz de Oliveira, Ivone Kassu, Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, Joca do Som, José Antonio Martinuzzo, Juliana Perigo, Klecius Henrique, Leonardo Oiticica, Lourival Sant’Anna, Lúcia Haddad, Luciana Amorim, Luciana Franzolin, Luiz Cordeiro Mergulhão, Lyra Netto, Marcio José Domingues Pacheco, Marcio Valente, Marilia Cajaíba, Mário Magalhães, Mário Prata, Marisilda Valente, Mariza Romero, Marizilda de Castro Figueiredo, Pascoal Soto, Raphael Cardoso, Ricardo Hofstetter, Ricardo Schwab, Roberto Viana, Rodrigo Pereira Freire, Samantha Quadrat, Silvia Ebens, Silvio Essinger, Sylvio Passos, Talles Rodrigues Alves, Tatiana Marinho, Tatiane Rangel, Véronique Surrel, Vicente Paim and Wilson Moherdaui.

Finally, I would like to thank the hundreds of people from more than thirty countries who sent data, documents and photos to the website http://www.cpc.com.br/paulocoelho/, which was created in order to receive such contributions, some of whom supplied important information that I have used in this book.

Fernando Morais
Ilhabela, March 2008

THOSE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS BOOK

Acácio Paz

Afonso Galvão

Alan Clarke

Amapola Rios

André Midani

Andréa Cals

Antonio Carlos Austregésilo de Athayde

Antonio Carlos ‘Kakiko’ Dias

Antonio Cláudio de Lima Vieira

Antônio Ovídio Clement Fajardo

Antônio Walter Sena, Jr. (‘Toninho Buda’)

Arash Hejazi

Ariovaldo Bonas

Arnaldo Niskier

Arnold Bruver, Jr.

Artur da Távola

Basia Stepien

Beatriz Vallandro

Cecilia Bolocco

Cecília Mac Dowell

Chico Castro Silva

Christina Oiticica

Cristina Lacerda

Darc Costa

Dedê Conte

Eduardo Jardim de Moraes

Élide ‘Dedê’ Conte

Ernesto Emanuelle Mandarino

Eugênio Mohallen

Fabíola Fracarolli

Fernando Bicudo

Frédéric Beigbeder

Frédéric Morel

Geneviève Phalipou

Gilles Haeri

Glória Albues

Guy Jorge Ruffier

Hélio Campos Mello

Henrique Caban

Hildegard Angel

Hildebrando Goes Filho

Ilma Fontes

Índio do Brasil Lemes

Isabela Maltarolli

Ivan Junqueira

Jerry Adriani

Joel Macedo

Jorge Luiz Costa Ramos

Jorge Mourão

José Antonio Mendonça Neto

José Antonio ‘Pepe’ Domínguez

José Mário Pereira

José Reinaldo Rios de Magalhães

José Wilker

Julles Haeri

Kika Seixas

Leda Vieira de Azevedo

Lizia Azevedo

Marcelo Nova

Márcia Faria Lima

Márcia Nascimento

Marcos Medeiros Bastos

Marcos Mutti

Marcos Paraguassu Arruda Câmara

Maria Cecília Duarte Arraes de Alencar

Maria Eugênia Stein

Marie Christine Espagnac

Marilu Carvalho

Mário Sabino

Maristela Bairros

Maurício Mandarino

Michele Conte

Milton Temer

Mônica Antunes

Nelly Canellas Branco

Nelson Liano, Jr

Nelson Motta

Orietta Paz

Patrice Hoffman

Patricia Martín

Paula Braconnot

Paulo Roberto Rocco

Pedro Queima Coelho de Souza

Regina Bilac Pinto

Renato Menescal

Renato Pacca

Ricardo Sabanes

Rita Lee

Roberto Menescal

Rodrigo Meinberg

Rosana Fiengo

Serge Phalipou

Sidney Magal

Silvio Ferraz

Soizik Molkhou

Sônia Maria Coelho de Souza

Stella Paula Costa

Vera Prnjatovic Richter

Zé Rodrix

Zeca Araújo

Zuenir Ventura

PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Every effort has been made to ensure the origin and ownership of the photos used in this book. This was not always possible, particularly in the case of photos obtained from family collections or those of friends of Paulo Coelho. I should be happy to give credit to the photographers should they come forward.