Paulo Coelho A Warrior’s Life The Authorized Biography Fernando Morais For Marina, my companion on yet another crossing of the Rubicon When the world fails to end in the year 2000, perhaps what will end is this fascination with the work of Paulo Coelho. Wilson Martins, literary critic, April 1998, O Globo Brazil is Rui Barbosa, it’s Euclides da Cunha, but it’s also Paulo Coelho. I’m not a reader of his books, nor am I an admirer, but he has to be accepted as a fact of contemporary Brazilian life. Martins again, July 2005, O Globo Contents Epigraph Chapter 1 Paulo today: Budapest–Prague–Hamburg–Cairo Chapter 2 Childhood Chapter 3 Schooldays Chapter 4 First play, first love Chapter 5 First encounter with Dr Benjamim Chapter 6 Batatinha’s début Chapter 7 Ballad of the Clinic Gaol Chapter 8 Shock treatment Chapter 9 The great escape Chapter 10 Vera Chapter 11 The marijuana years Chapter 12 Discovering America Chapter 13 Gisa Chapter 14 The Devil and Paulo Chapter 15 Paulo and Raul Chapter 16 A devil of a different sort Photographic Insert Chapter 17 Paulo renounces the Devil Chapter 18 Cissa Chapter 19 London Chapter 20 Christina Chapter 21 First meeting with Jean Chapter 22 Paulo and Christina–publishers Chapter 23 The road to Santiago Chapter 24 The Alchemist Chapter 25 The critics’ response Chapter 26 Success abroad Chapter 27 World fame Chapter 28 Becoming an ‘immortal’ Chapter 29 The Zahir Chapter 30 One hundred million copies sold Facts about Paulo Coelho Acknowledgements About the Author Copyright About the Publisher CHAPTER 1 Paulo today: Budapest–Prague–Hamburg–Cairo I T’S A DREARY, GREY EVENING in May 2005 as the enormous white Air France Airbus A600 touches down gently on the wet runway of Budapest’s Ferihegy airport. It is the end of a two-hour flight from Lyons in the south of France. In the cabin, the stewardess informs the passengers that it’s 6.00 p.m. in Hungary’s capital city and that the local temperature is 8°C. Seated beside the window in the front row of business class, his seat belt still fastened, a man in a black T- shirt looks up and stares at some invisible point beyond the plastic wall in front of him. Unaware of the other passengers’ curious looks, and keeping his eyes fixed on the same spot, he raises the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand as though in blessing and remains still for a moment. After the plane stops, he gets up to take his bag from the overhead locker. He is dressed entirely in black–canvas boots, jeans and T-shirt. (Someone once remarked that, were it not for the wicked gleam in his eye, he could be mistaken for a priest.) A small detail on his woollen jacket, which is also black, tells the other passengers–at least those who are French–that their fellow traveller is no ordinary mortal, since on his lapel is a tiny gold pin embossed in red, a little larger than a computer chip, indicating to those around him that he is a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. This is the most coveted of French decorations, created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte and granted only at the personal wish of the President of the Republic. The award, which was given to the traveller at the behest of Jacques Chirac, is not, however, the only thing that marks him out. His thinning, close-cropped white hair ends in a tuft above the nape of his neck, a small white ponytail some 10 centimetres long. This is a sikha, the lock of hair worn by Brahmans, orthodox Hindus and Hare Krishna monks. His neat white moustache and goatee beard are the final touch on a lean, strong, tanned face. At 1.69 metres he’s fairly short, but muscular and with not an ounce of fat on his body. With his rucksack on his back and dying for a cigarette, he joins the queue of passengers in the airport corridor, with an unlit, Brazilian-made Galaxy Light between his lips. In his hand is a lighter ready to be flicked on as soon as it’s allowed, which will not, it seems, be soon. Even for someone with no Hungarian, the meaning of the words ‘Tilos adohanyzas’ is clear, since it appears on signs everywhere, alongside the image of a lighted cigarette with a red line running through it. Standing beside the baggage carousel, the man in black looks anxiously over at the glass wall separating international passengers from the main concourse. His black case with a white heart chalked on it is, in fact, small enough for him to have taken it on board as hand luggage, but its owner hates carrying anything. After going through customs and passing beyond the glass wall, the man in black is visibly upset to find that his name does not appear on any of the boards held up by the drivers and tour reps waiting for passengers on his flight. Worse still, there are no photographers, reporters or television cameras waiting for him. There is no one. He walks out on to the pavement, looking around, and even before lifting the collar of his jacket against the cold wind sweeping across Budapest, he lights his cigarette and consumes almost half of it in one puff. The other Air France passengers go their separate ways in buses, taxis and private cars, leaving the pavement deserted. The man’s disappointment gives way to anger. He lights another cigarette, makes an international call on his mobile phone and complains in Portuguese and in a slightly nasal voice: ‘There’s no one waiting for me in Budapest! Yes! That’s what I said!’ He repeats this, hammering each word into the head of the person at the other end: ‘That’s right–there’s no one waiting for me here in Budapest. No one. I said no one!’ He rings off without saying goodbye, stubs out his cigarette and starts to smoke a third, pacing disconsolately up and down. Fifteen interminable minutes after disembarking he hears a familiar sound. He turns towards it, and his eyes light up. An enormous smile appears on his face. The reason for his joy is only a few metres away: a crowd of reporters, photographers, cameramen and paparazzi are running towards him calling his name, nearly all of them holding a microphone and a recorder. Behind them is a still larger group–his fans. ‘Mister Cole-ro! Mister Paulo Cole-ro!’ This is how Hungarians pronounce the surname of the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, the man in black who has just arrived in Budapest as guest of honour at the International Book Festival. The invitation was a Russian initiative, rather than a Brazilian one (Brazil doesn’t even have a stand), Russia being the guest country at the 2005 festival. Coelho is the most widely read author in Russia, which, with 143 million inhabitants, is one of the most populous countries in the world. Along with the reporters come people bearing copies of his most recent success, The Zahir, all open at the title page, as they step over the tangle of cables on the ground and face the hostility of the journalists, simply to get his autograph. The flashbulbs and the bluish glow from the reflectors cast a strange light on the shaven head of the author, who looks as if he were on the strobe-lit dance floor of a 1970s disco. Despite the crowd and the discomfort, he wears a permanent, angelic smile and, even though he’s drowning in a welter of questions in English, French and Hungarian, he appears to be savouring an incomparable pleasure: world fame. He is in his element. Mister Cole-ro with his sparkling eyes and the sincerest possible smile is once again Paulo Coelho, superstar and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, whose books have been translated into 66 languages and dialects across 160 countries. He is a man accustomed to receiving a pop star’s welcome from his readers. He tells the journalists that he has been to Hungary only once, more than twenty years before. ‘I’m just afraid that fifteen years of capitalist tourism may have done Budapest more harm than the Russians did in half a century,’ he says provocatively, referring to the period when the country was part of the former Soviet Union. That same day, the author had another opportunity to savour public recognition. While waiting for the plane at Lyons airport he was approached by a fellow Brazilian, who told him that he had read and admired his work. On being called to take the bus to the plane, they walked together to the gate, but the other Brazilian, when asked to produce his boarding pass, couldn’t find it. Anxious that the other passengers would grow impatient as the man searched clumsily through his things, the Air France employee moved him to one side, and the queue moved on. Out of kindness, Paulo Coelho stood beside his fellow countryman, but was told: ‘Really, you don’t need to wait. I’ll find it in a minute.’ All the other passengers were now seated in the bus, and the Air France employee was threatening to close the door. ‘I’m sorry, but if you haven’t got a boarding pass, you can’t board the plane.’