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Thursday June 2, 2005
Coelho in Egypt
Brazilian alchemy wins local fans
By Mona Moheb

Paulo Coelho

Paul Coelho met his Egyptian following when he spoke to a packed audience at the Sawy Cultural Center.

Courtesy Sawy Cultural Center

Superstar novelist Paulo Coelho finally came to Al Sawy Cultural Center on 23 May to meet his sizeable Egyptian following. More than 1,500 people filled Al Sawy Center’s open-air auditorium on the banks of the Nile to hear the Brazilian author speak.

Coelho said that the idea for the trip originated four years ago after a meeting with Heba Raouf, a political science professor at Cairo University. A number of logistical and financial problems, including simply finding an institution that could host the event, prevented him from coming earlier.

Despite the size of the audience, Coelho maintained an intimate air as he casually chatted about subjects such as marriage, omens, love for one’s parents and success and failure in life­—the topics of his stories, and the reason that some have dubbed him a “self-help” author.

“He succeeded in giving a lot of clues to his listeners, who want to achieve their dreams but are afraid of failure, who do not want to make mistakes and who want to be happy,” said Mohamed Metwally, one audience member.

A troubled path to success

Coelho was born in 1947 to a middle-class family in Rio de Janeiro. He showed a talent for writing from his early youth (winning a school poetry prize) but his parent were opposed to his vocation, wanting him to become an engineer. When Coelho was an adolescent, his parents took his rebelliousness as a sign of mental illness and committed him to a psychiatric hospital, where he underwent several sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. After working in the theatre and in journalism, he was forcefully recommitted to an institution, until a family doctor advised against it. In the 1970s, Coelho was a “hippie” and participated in Brazil’s counter-culture. His work on a comic strip that the authorities considered subversive led to him being arrested and tortured—he says he survived by pretending to be insane. In 1977 he had a brief first marriage during which he moved to London. Then in 1979 he married his second wife, a childhood friend, and traveled through Europe with her. In 1987 he wrote his first book, The Pilgrimage. But it was his 1988 novel The Alchemist—now translated into about 50 languages—that made him famous worldwide.

“Living your life without making mistakes is like passing through life without really living it,” Coelho said to applause from the crowd.

Coelho’s newest book, The Zahir, derives its title from the Arabic for “shining, radiant” and was the title of a Jorge Louis Borges short story. In Borges’ story it referred to a mythical object with which those who had seen it became increasingly obsessed. Coelho’s novel, on the other hand, tells the story of a man suddenly and inexplicably abandoned by his wife, who finds himself unable to stop thinking of her. Copies of The Zahir were confiscated from the Tehran Book Fair recently, even though Coelho had reportedly obtained all the necessary permits to exhibit and sell it there.

The audience at Al Sawy Center was predominantly young. A great number of them had been introduced to Coelho through the best-selling Arabic translation of The Alchemist, by leading Egyptian novelist Baha Taher—although some had read Coelho in English, French or Spanish. Many had the same response when asked about Coelho and his popularity among Egyptian youth, saying that he uses simple language to discuss universal themes of love and spirituality, which are easily accessible across cultural borders. Indeed, most praised Coelho as being remarkably easy to follow.

“His writing is so easy to understand,” said Yasmine Zaki, 27, an engineer. “It doesn’t include too much description—that leads to boredom. To read Paulo’s novels, you don’t have to be a book-worm,” she confided.

“You always feel comfortable while reading Paulo, the same comfort you feel while listening to him. His words go smoothly inside you, without any effort of concentration. It’s close to human thinking,” remarked Amira Raouf, 24, a designer.

Others pointed out that in some circles, Coelho has simply become fashionable. “It has become a trend and a trademark to prove our knowledge,” explained Rita Magued, 26, a pharmacist. When she first read The Alchemist in 1996, she explained, “he wasn’t that popular. But I loved his writings about following our dreams.”

When asked about the secret to his success, Coelho himself could not provide an answer.

“Don’t you think I asked myself that question when I realized I was a best-selling novelist?” he asked. “I think if I found out the secret I would then search for an equation or a formula to apply in my next writing, just to please the readers. Which I’d rather not do.”



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