Paulo Coelho: Confessions of a Pilgrim [antikvár]

Confessions of a Pilgrim Paulo Coelho, one of the world's best-selling authors, was born in the Botafogo neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, under the sign of Virgo, on 24 August, 1947. He was born - and feels proud to have been - on the same day, of the same month and under the same sign, although many years later, as his literary idol, Jorge Luis Borges. When he was still quite young, having first committed his poetry to memory, he took a bus from Rio de Janeiro and travelled for forty-eight hours to Buenos Aires, in order to meet Borges in person. He found him after more than a few difficulties and stood mutely before him. He looked at him and thought, 'Idols don't speak,' and went back to Rio. He doesn't deny there is much of Borges in his works, beginning with The Alchemist, the book that brought him worldwide fame. Undoubtedly, it was the brilliant Argentinian who put the idea of becoming a writer into the head of the son of engineer Pedro Queima Coelho de Souza, when his father wanted him to be a lawyer. Later, he would be committed to a mental hospital for disobeying him about this. In reality, the boy Paulo - who came into this world through a difficult birth, which led his profoundly religious mother, Lygia Araripe Coelho, to have him baptized in the clinic where he was born - always dreamt of an artistic career, something frowned upon in his upper-middle-class household. Perhaps, for this reason, he had trouble at school. He liked to read, not just Borges but Henry Miller as well, and grew fond of the theatre. His