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An Interview with Paulo Coelho

Written by : Jessi Thind

"Paulo Coelho ,  seen by some as an alchemist of words and, by others, as a mass culture phenomenon, is the most influential author of the present century. Readers from over 150 countries, irrespective of their creed and culture, have turned him into a reference author of our time.
 

His books, translated into 56 languages, have not only topped the bestseller lists, but have gone on to become the subject of social and cultural debate. The ideas, philosophy and subject matter covered in his books touch the aspirations of millions of readers searching for their own path and for new ways of understanding the world.

Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 into a middle-class family, the son of Pedro, an engineer, and Lygia, a housewife. "

What made you want to become writer?

When I was fifteen, I said to my mother: 'I've discovered my vocation. I want to be a writer.' 'My dear,' she replied sadly, 'your father is an engineer. He's a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. 

Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?'

In order to answer my mother's question, I decided to do some research. This is what I learned about what being a writer meant in the early 1960s:

A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published. A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation.. A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says: 'I'm a writer', and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works. When invited to say what he is reading at the moment, a writer always mentions a book no one has ever heard of.

Armed with all this information, I went back to my mother and explained exactly what a writer was. She was somewhat surprised. 'It would be easier to be an engineer,' she said. 'Besides, you don't wear glasses.'

But then a rock singer turned up and asked me to write words for his songs, and I withdrew from the search for immortality and set myself once more on the same path as ordinary people. This path took me to many places and caused me to change countries more often than I changed shoes.
 

What was the journey like? That is, what were their specific steps to follow? And was the path difficult?

From the moment I decided to make my living from literature, I dropped all my other work. I stopping working as a lyricist, as a TV scriptwriter and as a journalist, and resolved to put all my energies into what brought me most happiness. My allies were the readers who managed to spread the work of an unknown author.

I wanted to talk about ancient themes, but using modern language. My drafts were almost three times as long as the final book, but I forced myself to believe in the reader's ability to set the scene, and I concentrated, instead, on the interactions between the characters. Experience has proved me right.

On the other hand, my creative process goes against a "recipe for success"; my books have different themes, are set at different times. Some say it's all down to marketing: well, my first two books (The Diary of a Magus and The Alchemist) had already sold more than 250,000 copies before the first advertisement appeared. The same happened abroad: publishers were only willing to invest in an unknown Brazilian writer when they saw what was happening in Brazil.
 

Who were some of your favorite writers?

Jorge Amado, Henry Miller, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges.
 

What advice would you give to a young aspiring writer?

There are three factors that always make the universe favors someone trying to achieve their dream. The first: you must believe in what you are doing. The second: you can never achieve a dream alone. Finally, you must find a personal way of sharing your dream - in literature, a style.

An author must take risks. Every creative undertaking is an adventure which is at once painful and fascinating: on the one hand, there is the fear of discovering our own ghosts; on the other, the excitement of knowing we are more interesting than we thought we were.

And in order to take that plunge into our soul, we need a clearly defined creative process. Whether in literature, engineering or love, the creative process follows the cycle of nature.

The first stage is ploughing the field: as soon as the soil is turned over, oxygen penetrates into places it could not previously reach. We will thus be prepared for the miracle of inspiration.

Next comes sowing: every work is the fruit of contact with life. The creative person cannot shut himself away; he needs to be in touch with his fellow human beings. The more intensely he lives, the more likely he is to find his own language. He must allow life to sow the fertile ground of his unconscious.

Then there comes a time of ripeness, when the work writes itself freely, in the depths of the author's soul. I know people who compulsively take notes of everything going on in their heads, ignoring what is being written in their unconscious. The result is that the fruits of memory get in the way of the fruits of inspiration. Last comes harvest: the moment when the creator brings to a conscious level everything that he sowed and allowed to ripen. If picked too early, the fruit is green; if picked too late, the fruit is rotten. The artist must now Labour Day and night, fearlessly and in a disciplined manner, until the work is complete.

And what should one do with the fruits of the harvest? Again, look to Mother Nature: she shares everything with everyone. When the work is complete, one must share one's soul, without fear and without shame.