Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to a middle-class family. His parents, alarmed by his early ambition to become a writer, committed him to a mental institution three times during his adolescence. After his release, he lived as a hippie, traveled widely through South America, North Africa, and Europe, and worked as a songwriter, journalist, theater director, and actor before turning to fiction. A pilgrimage along the Road to Santiago de Compostela in 1986 became a turning point, inspiring his first book and igniting a spiritual transformation that would define his literary career. This author hub collects 1 work in the Canon Compass ranking, led by The Alchemist.