The Alchemist

by Paulo Coelho

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Series (with order)

Canonical Title

The Alchemist

Original publication date

1988

1992 (english translation - Alan R. Clarke)

Important places

People/Characters

Awards and honors

BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, 2003, No 94)

Epigraph

First words

The boy's name was Santiago.

Quotations

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

LibraryThing members' description

Book description

De Andalusische schaapherder Santiago koestert van jongs af maar één wens: reizen,al!e hoeken van de werefd onderzoeken en dan eindelijk te weten komen hoe die in elkaar zit. Zijn dromen over een verborgen schat zetten hem aan lot een queeste. Na vele omzwervingen onrmoet hij in Egypte de aichemist. Deze beschik t niet alleen over grote spirituele wijsheid, hij kent ook de diepten van het hart waarin de laatste waarheden over onszelf verscholen liggen.Als nomaden dolen wij schijnbaar verloren door een eindeloze woestijn om ten slotte die plek te bereiken waar ook ons hart zich bevindt.
Paulo Coelho is een mondiaal fenomeen. Zijn werk gaat in miljoenen exemplaren over de toon ba n k en is in meer dan dertig talen vertaald.Va n De alchemist zijn wereldwijd al rond 6 miljoen |exemplaren verkocht.
"Vande Latijns-Amerikaanse schrijvers wordt alleen Gabriel
Garcia Marquez meer gelezen dan Paulo
Coelho.-The Economist
-De a/cfiemr'sfiseen hedendaagse versie van De kleine prins. Een magistraal en eenvoudig boek. ~ Mitorad Pavic
"Paulo Coelho ken t hè t geheim van de literaire alchemie.-Kemaburo Oë
www.paulocoelhoblog.com

Book descriptions

Amazon.com (ISBN 0007175256, Audio CD)

Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.

Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." --Gail Hudson

(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:04:33 -0400)

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