Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life

by Fernando Morais

  But, like Faust, the alchemist realizes that knowledge lies not in books but in people–and the people are in the audience. In order to get them in the mood, he gets them to chant or sing something all together. Perry would be the alchemist, in the role of the discoverer. Again, I stress that this must all be done with great good humour.

  This sketch never became a play, but went on to become a novel. Paulo knew the story so intimately that when it came to writing the book, it took him only two weeks to produce 200 pages. At the beginning was a dedication to Jean, to whom Paulo gave the privilege of being the first to read the original manuscript:

  For J.,

  An alchemist who knows and uses the secrets of the Great Work.

  When The Alchemist was ready for publication in June 1988, sales of The Pilgrimage had exceeded 40,000 copies and it had spent nineteen uninterrupted weeks in the main best-seller lists of the Brazilian press. The sublime indifference with which the media had treated it gave a special savour to Paulo’s success, a success that was entirely down to the book itself and to the guerrilla warfare that Paulo, Chris and Andréa Cals had engaged in to publicize it. The I Ching, as interpreted by Paulo, recommended that he renew his contract with Andréa, but since she had taken on other work and he required her to devote herself entirely to him, her responsibilities were transferred to Chris.

  She and Paulo adopted the same tactics for The Alchemist as had been used for the first book: the couple once again distributed flyers at the doors of theatres, bars and cinemas, visited bookshops and presented booksellers with signed copies. With his experience of the record industry, Paulo brought to the literary world a somewhat reprehensible practice–the jabaculê, a payment made to radio stations to encourage them to make favourable comments about a record, or in this case, a book. Evidence of this can be found in spreadsheets–certificados de irradiação–sent to him by O Povo AM-FM, the most popular radio station in Fortaleza, Ceará. These show that during the entire second half of July, The Alchemist was mentioned three times a day in programmes presented by Carlos Augusto, Renan França and Ronaldo César, who were, at the time, the station’s most popular presenters.

  Paulo and Chris knew that they were in a world where anything goes–from sending signed copies to the grandees of the Brazilian media to becoming a full-time speaker, albeit unpaid. He had eight themes for organizers of talks to choose from: ‘The Sacred Paths of Antiquity’ ‘The Dawn of Magic’ ‘The Practices of RAM’ ‘The Philosophy and Practice of the Occult Tradition’ ‘The Esoteric Tradition and the Practices of RAM’ ‘The Growth of the Esoteric’ ‘Magic and Power’ and ‘Ways of Teaching and Learning’. At the end of each session, the audience could buy signed copies of The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist, and it was, apparently, very easy to get people to come and listen to him. Paulo’s diary at the time shows that he spoke frequently at theatres and universities, as well as in country hotels and even people’s homes.

  However, this campaign produced slow results and the effects on sales of The Alchemist took time to appear. Six weeks after its launch, a few thousand copies had been sold–a vast number in a country like Brazil, it’s true, but nothing when compared with the success of The Pilgrimage and far fewer than he had planned: ‘Up to now’, he wrote, ‘the book hasn’t reached 10 per cent of the goal I set myself. I think what this book needs is a miracle. I spend all day by the telephone, which refuses to ring. Why the hell doesn’t some journalist call me saying that he liked my book? My work is greater than my obsessions, my words, my feelings. For its sake I humiliate myself, I sin, I hope, I despair.’

  With The Pilgrimage still high in the best-seller lists and The Alchemist heading in the same direction, it had become impossible to ignore the author. A great silence had greeted the publication of the first book, but the launch of The Alchemist was preceded by full-page articles in all the main Brazilian newspapers. And because most of the press had totally ignored The Pilgrimage on its publication, they felt obliged to rediscover it following the success of The Alchemist. However, most restricted themselves to printing an article on the author and a summary of the story. The journalist and critic Antônio Gonçalves Filho, in Folha de São Paulo, was the first to publish a proper review. He commented only that The Alchemist was not as seductive a narrative as The Pilgrimage and that the story adopted by the author had already been the subject of a considerable number of books, plays, films and operas, something that Paulo himself had commented on in his preface to the book.

  ‘This is why The Alchemist, too, is a symbolic text. In the course of the book I pass on everything I have learned. I’ve also tried to pay homage to great authors who managed to achieve a Universal Language: Hemingway, Blake, Borges (who also used the Persian story for one of his tales) and Malba Tahan, among others.’

  In the second half of 1988, Paulo was just wondering whether to move to a larger, more professional publisher than Eco, when he was set yet another trial by Jean. He and Chris were to spend forty days in the Mojave Desert in southern California. A few days before they were due to leave, he had an unsettling phone conversation with Mandarino, the owner of Eco, who, although he was still enthusiastic about The Pilgrimage, did not believe that The Alchemist would enjoy the same success. The best thing to do would be to postpone the trip and try to resolve the problem immediately, but Master J would not be moved. And so in the middle of September, Paulo and Chris found themselves practising the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius Loyola in the extreme heat of the Mojave Desert, which could reach 50°C. Four years later, he wrote As Valkirias [The Valkyries], which was based on this experience.

  At the end of October, they returned to Rio. Paulo wanted to resolve his difficulties with Eco immediately, but leaving the small publishing house without having anywhere else to go was not a good idea. One night, wanting to forget these problems for a while, he went with a friend to a poetry recital that was being held in a small fashionable bar. During the entire evening, he had the strange feeling that someone in the audience behind him was staring at him. It was only when the evening came to an end and the lights went up that he turned and caught the fixed gaze of a pretty dark-haired young girl in her early twenties. There was no apparent reason for anyone to look at him like that. At forty-one, Paulo’s close-cropped hair was almost entirely white, as were his moustache and goatee. The girl was too pretty for him not to approach her.

  He went up to her and asked straight out: ‘Were you by any chance looking at me during the reading?’

  The girl smiled and said: ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘I’m Paulo Coelho.’

  ‘I know. Look what I’ve got here in my bag.’

  She took out a battered copy of The Pilgrimage.

  Paulo was about to sign it, but when he heard that it belonged to a friend of hers, he gave it back, saying: ‘Buy your own copy and I’ll sign it.’

  They agreed to meet two days later in the elegant old Confeitaria Colombo, in the centre of the city, so that he could sign her book. Although his choice of such a romantic venue might seem to indicate that he had other intentions, this was not the case. He arrived more than half an hour late, saying that he couldn’t stay long because he had a meeting with his publisher, who had just confirmed that he was not interested in continuing to publish The Alchemist. So that they could talk a little more, Paulo and the girl walked together to the publisher’s office, which was ten blocks from the Colombo.

  Her name was Mônica Rezende Antunes, and she was the twenty-year-old only daughter of liberal parents whose sole demand had been that she take a course in classical ballet, which she abandoned almost at once. When she met Paulo, she was studying chemical engineering at the Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro. What Mônica remembers most vividly about that meeting was that she was ‘dressed ridiculously’: ‘Imagine going to discuss contracts with your publisher in the company of a girl in tiny shorts, a flowery blouse and hair like a nymphet!’

  Mônica ended up being a witness to
the moment when Mandarino at Eco decided not to continue to publish The Alchemist. He didn’t believe that a work of fiction such as this could have the same degree of success as a personal narrative like The Pilgrimage. Although she had read only The Pilgrimage, Mônica couldn’t understand how anyone could reject a book by an author who had made such an impact on her. Perhaps in an attempt to console himself, Paulo gave her a not very convincing explanation for what might be Ernesto Mandarino’s real reason: with annual inflation in the country running at 1,200 per cent it was more profitable to put his money in financial deals than to publish books that ran the risk of not selling. The two of them walked on together a little farther, exchanged telephone numbers and went their different ways.

  A few days later, before Paulo had decided what to do with the rights to The Alchemist, he read in a newspaper column that Lya Luft would be signing her book of poetry, O Lado Fatal [The Fatal Side], at a cocktail party given by her publisher, Paulo Roberto Rocco. Paulo had been keeping an eye on Editora Rocco for some time. It had only been in existence for just over ten years, but its catalogue already included heavyweights like Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe and Stephen Hawking. When Paulo arrived, the bookshop was crammed with people. Squeezing his way past waiters and guests, he went up to Rocco, whom he knew only from photographs in newspapers, and said:

  ‘Good evening, my name’s Paulo Coelho, we don’t know each other but…’

  ‘I already know you by name.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about my books. I’ve a friend, Bona, who lives in the same building as you and had thought of asking her to give a dinner so she could introduce us.’

  ‘You don’t need to ask anything of anyone. Come to my office and we’ll have a coffee and talk about your books.’

  Rocco arranged the meeting for two days later. Before making a decision, though, Paulo turned to the I Ching to find out whether or not he should hand The Alchemist to a new publisher, since Rocco had clearly shown an interest. From what he could understand from the oracle’s response, it seemed that the book should be given to the new publisher only if he agreed to have it in the bookshops before Christmas. This was a highly convenient interpretation since, as any author knows, Christmas is the best time of the year for selling books. As he was about to leave to meet Rocco, the phone rang. It was Mônica, whom he invited to go along with him.

  After a brief, friendly conversation with Rocco, Paulo left copies of The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist with him. The publisher thought it somewhat strange that Paulo should want him to publish the book so quickly, but Paulo explained that all he had to do was buy the camera-ready copy from Eco, change the name of the publisher and put the book on the market. Rocco said that he would think about it and would reply that week. In fact, two days later, he called to say that the new contract was ready for signature. Rocco was going to publish The Alchemist.

  CHAPTER 25

  The critics’ response

  REJECTED BY MANDARINO, The Alchemist became one of the most popular gifts not only that Christmas but on many other Christmases, New Years, Easters, Carnivals, Lents and birthdays in Brazil and in more than a hundred other countries. The first edition to be launched by his new publisher sold out within a few days, creating a most unusual situation: an author with two books in the best-seller lists, one, The Alchemist, fiction and the other, The Pilgrimage, non-fiction. The Alchemist never stopped selling.

  The phenomenon that the book became in the hands of Rocco encouraged Paulo to take The Pilgrimage from Eco as well and give it to his new publisher. Needing a pretext for such a change, he began to make demands on his old publisher. The first of these was an attempt to protect his royalties from the erosion caused by an astonishing 1,350 per cent annual rate of inflation: instead of quarterly payments (a privilege accorded to very few authors), he wanted Mandarino to make them weekly, which he agreed to do even though it was against market practice. Taking advantage of Mandarino’s infinite patience (and his clear interest in retaining the book), Paulo then added two clauses hitherto unknown in Brazilian publishing contracts: daily monetary correction, linked to one of the mechanisms that existed at the time, and the use of a percentage of gross sales for marketing the book. These tactics seemed to be of particular interest to Mônica Antunes, who now went everywhere with Paulo. At the beginning of 1989, she told him over dinner in a pizzeria in Leblon that she was thinking of giving up her degree course at the university (she had just finished her second year in chemical engineering) and moving abroad with her boyfriend, Eduardo. The author’s eyes lit up, as if he had just seen a new door opening, and he said: ‘Great idea! Why don’t you go to Spain? I’ve got various friends there who can help you. You could try to sell my books. If you succeed, you’ll get the 15 per cent commission every literary agent earns.’

  When she told her boyfriend about this, he discovered that the company for which he was working had a factory in Barcelona and it appeared, at first glance, that it would be fairly easy to get a transfer there, or at least a paid placement for a few months. Mônica, meanwhile, had learned that some of the most important Spanish publishers had their headquarters in Barcelona.

  In the last week of May 1989, Mônica and Eduardo arrived in Madrid, where they stayed for three weeks before going on to Barcelona. During their first year in Spain, Mônica and Eduardo lived in an apartment in Rubí, just outside Barcelona. At book fairs they would go to all the stands collecting publishers’ catalogues and would then spend the following days sending each a small press release offering the Spanish language rights to The Alchemist and other foreign language rights to publishers in other countries for The Pilgrimage, which had been taken on and translated by the Bolivian agency H. Katia Schumer and published in Spanish by Martínez Roca.

  Meanwhile, in Brazil The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist remained at the top of the best-seller lists. Although Mandarino had accepted all the author’s demands, at the end of 1989, he received a visit from Paulo Rocco, who brought bad news. For an advance of US$60,000, his company had acquired the publication rights to The Pilgrimage. Nearly two decades later, Ernesto Mandarino still cannot hide the hurt caused by the author on whom he had gambled when he was still a nobody: ‘New editions were continuing to come out–to the envy of other publishers. When he visited me, Rocco said that he was offering Paulo Coelho an advance of US$60,000. I said that if that was what he wanted, there was nothing I could do, as the contracts were renewable after each edition. After twenty-eight editions of The Pilgrimage he left us. That really hurt. Almost as hurtful was the fact that, in interviews and articles, he never mentioned that he began with us.’

  Bad feelings apart, Mandarino recognizes the importance of the author not only in the publishing world in Brazil but also in Brazilian literature: ‘Paulo Coelho made books into a popular consumer product. He revolutionized the publishing market in Brazil, which used to limit itself to ludicrously small runs of 3,000 copies. With him the market grew. Paulo Coelho brought respect for books in Brazil and for our literature in the world.’

  In a very small publishing market such as that in Brazil, it was only natural that large publishers should feel interested in an author who, with only two titles to his name, had sold more than five hundred thousand copies. Despite the Olympian indifference of the media, his books vanished from the bookshop shelves and thousands crowded into auditoriums across the country, though not to listen to the usual promotional rubbish. Readers seemed to want to share with the author the spiritual experiences he wrote of in his works. Paulo’s talks were incredibly popular, and scenes such as that in the Martins Pena auditorium in Brasília–when it was necessary to put up loudspeakers outside the 2,000-seater auditorium for those arriving late–were not uncommon. One interview which he gave to the journalist Mara Regea, of Rádio Nacional de Brasília, had to be repeated three times at the request of listeners wanting to hear him talk for an hour and a half on alchemy and mysticism. Such enthusiasm was repeated across the country. In Belo Horizonte, t
he 350-seat Banco do Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais auditorium wasn’t large enough for the almost one thousand people who turned up to hear him, forcing the young Afonso Borges, the organizer of the event, to place televisions in various parts of the building so that no one would miss the author’s words.

  When the press woke up to this phenomenon, it seemed confused and at a loss to explain his overwhelming success. Reluctant to judge the literary content of the books, the newspapers preferred to regard them as yet another passing marketing phenomenon. In the opinion of a large number of journalists, the author Paulo Coelho was nothing more than a fad, like the hula hoop, the twist and even the lyricist Paulo Coelho and his Sociedade Alternativa. Since O Globo had called him ‘the Castaneda of Copacabana’ on the front page of its arts section two years earlier, the media had practically forgotten him. It was only when his books reached the top of the best-seller lists and the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo learned that The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist had sold more than half a million copies that the critics took note of the fact that two years was a long time for something that was merely a fad. The man with the prematurely white hair who talked about dreams, angels and love seemed to be here to stay, but it took a while for the press to understand this.

  He did not appear prominently in the newspapers again until October 1989, in a full-page feature in the arts supplement of O Estado de São Paulo, which was divided into two parts. The first was a profile written by Thereza Jorge on the author’s career in rock music. At the end, she stated unequivocally: ‘But it is in literature that Coelho has clearly found his place.’ However, proof that opinions on his work were divided appeared on that same page, in the form of a twenty-line item signed by Hamilton dos Santos. He summarized Paulo’s work as ‘a cloying synthesis of teachings drawn from everything from Christianity to Buddhism’. As the author himself confessed, this was ‘the first real blow’ that he had received from a critic: ‘I just froze when I read it. Absolutely froze. It was as though the person who wrote it was warning me about the price of fame.’