The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the city where he now lives. His own life has in many ways been as varied and unusual as the protagonists of his internationally acclaimed novels. Like them, Paulo Coelho has followed a dream in a quest for fulfillment. His own dream, to be a writer, met with frustration throughout much of his early adult life, a time in which he worked at various professions, some of them materially rewarding but spiritually unfulfilling. "I always knew," he says, "that my Personal Legend, to use a term from alchemy, was to write." He was 38 when he published his first book.In 1970, after deciding that law school was not for him, he traveled through much of South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe. Returning to Brazil after two years, he began a successful career as popular songwriter. In 1974, he was imprisoned for a short time by the military dictatorship then ruling in Brazil. In 1980, he experienced one of the defining moments of his life: he walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. On this ancient highway, used for centuries by pilgrims from France to get to the cathedral said to house the remains of St. James, he achieved a self-awareness and a spiritual awakening that he later described in The Pilgrimage.Paulo Coelho once said that following your dream is like learning a foreign language; you will make mistakes but you will get there in the end. In 1988, he published The Alchemist, a novel that explores this theme, and it launched him as an international bestselling author. Specifically, Paulo Coelho is recognized for his powerful storytelling technique and the profound spiritual insights he blends seamlessly into his parables. Since then, The Alchemist has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has been translated into some 41 languages. In addition to The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho has written luminous novels about the different streams of our lives, including By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept, The Valkyries, The Fifth Mountain, and Veronika Decides to Die. A winner of numerous literary prizes, Paulo Coelho is also a prominent speaker for humanitarian causes. In 1999, he received a Crystal Award for Artistic Achievement at the Davos Economic Forum Conference.

出版者:HarperOne

作者:Paulo Coelho

页数:167

出版时间:2002-12-17

价格:6.99美元

装帧:平装

isbn号码:9780060543884

图书标签:PauloCoelho小说外国文学英文原版心靈生命alchemist保罗·科埃略spirituality

Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sniff a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.

Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." --Gail Hudson, Amazon.com Review

读后感

想读这本书总是在一两年前吧。当时偶然看到苏学长的荐书，最后列的就是这本《牧羊少年的奇幻之旅》。在校内上跟他提起读他硕士论文后记时的感动，他说：巧了，当时正好在看这本书。那时候就把这本书记在心间了。 　　不大么见学长写随感，不过那篇后记却是我迄今为止读过...  

这本书很有正能量，在追逐梦想的道路上我们会遇到很多的问题，但是只有心怀梦想，总是会实现的。 里面的一些句子让我有很多的思考。 男孩一直在追逐梦想，他遇到了一个人，这个人说“我害怕实现我的梦想，实现之后，我就没有活下去的动力了。我担心会大失所望，所以我宁愿只保...  

如果不是早年读过博尔赫斯的《双梦记》，翻到本书的213页，看到“他已经找到了财宝了”这句话，还真会被震到。幸好，这种震惊已经获得过，所以，本书给我的全部感觉，就只剩下纯真、简单和平静。很好。就像小时候，穿着新的衬衫和长裤，独自一人，走过初夏傍晚的街道回家。 从...  

这是一个浮华喧嚣的时代，要多好有多好，要多坏有多坏。 这是一个真实的时代，大街小巷都没有一丝影子。 这个时代的每一处，奔跑的都是经济学家、律师、电脑高手、股票操盘手…… 这个时代既缺乏文青，也缺乏愤怒青。 这本书选择的来得有些不合适宜，因为读这本书，不会有任何...  

转载-牧羊少年奇幻之旅/Gina 这位前辈是台湾的资深芳疗师Gina，她同时有深厚的基督教知识背景。我正是看过她的这篇，才知道了这本书。把它转载在这里，只是希望，更多的人可以通过Gina前辈这些文字，更深了解那个牧羊少年的世界 There was a boy. 认识那个男孩的时候，我1...

用户评价

有象征意义的书其实有点难读，不是说书难懂，而是这种书对共鸣的需求。开始的部分有很多喜欢的地方，但是后半部分并不能说让我觉得振奋人心。我想自己会不会受到激励去追寻自己的destiny，首先还需要明白自己的destiny是什么，这同样是个巨大的难题。去wiki了destiny和fate的区别，似乎有些懂了。我想destiny比fate更隐含了积极的意义，象征的是光明的未来，是主动的去追寻，而fate仿佛是不可避免的归宿，多少有了些悲剧色彩。也许有点跑题吧。中文版看了开头，翻译真是件苦差事，精准恐怕是永远达不到的，style，风格。英文版虽然也是翻译版，但是至少读起来不像少儿读物。看到中文版把baker翻译成卖爆米花的，我很犹豫是不是要继续读中文版了。书很短，有兴趣的读英文版吧。

这是一个非常有风格的印度视觉艺术家最喜欢的书，我22岁生日那天他把这本他每年都读一遍的书送给了我，附言“我把自己的一部分给你”。 Thank you Ricky, for this and all.

我依然相信，在最down的这天终于读完，给我以精神振作，也不得不说是一种omen. 炼金术，研究一样事物直到提练至一定纯度，然后世上的纷扰虚荣变成身外物，然后发现提炼万物的本质的过程就是提炼自己本身。

绕来绕去，一派胡言

麻雀虽小，五脏俱全。过多的艺术处理都是无用的，只要平实地写出自己的思考和那个有关成长和经历的故事，就是打动人心的。