Book suggestion - The Alchemist

Hi all,

Hope everybody's well. In this post, I am going to talk about one of my favourite books: The Alchemist, by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist has been widely translated, and has become an international best-seller (1).

Have you read this novel? Did you like it? Share in the replies section with us, if you want.

I had never heard about this author, but this book came as a free supplement with a newspaper I often buy, so I thought I might give it a try.

So, what is this novel about? It's about the journey of a boy, a shepherd from Andalusia, named Santiago, to find a treasure.

Santiago kept having a dream, so he asked a fortune teller in a nearby town what it meant. The woman told him that he was going to discover a treasure at the Egyptian Pyramids of Gaza, that would make him rich.

After the encounter with the fortune teller, he met a king, the king of Salem, who advised him that the only way to find the treasure was to follow the 'Signs', and introduced the idea of the 'Personal Legend'. The 'Personal Legend', according to the king of Salem, was what each of us always wanted to do, and all people knew their Personal Legend from childhood.

Santiago decided to sell all his sheep, and follow the 'Signs'. He embarked on a ship going to Africa, and planned to cross the desert to reach the pyramids. When he arrived in Africa, a man claimed to be able to take him to the pyramids, but instead robbed him of all his money.

Santiago was broke and betrayed; stranded in a foreign land. He didn't think of giving up though; he started working for a crystal merchant, and saved up enough money to fulfil his legend, and go to the pyramids.

He joined a caravan, and trekked across the desert. When they reached an oasis, Santiago met and fell in love with an Arabian girl named Fatima, to whom he also proposed. She neither accepted, nor denied; she urged him to go the pyramids, because that was his legend.

Did he succeed? Did he find what he was looking for? I think I'd better not tell you; if you're intrigued, you can find out yourselves.

And that's all for today. I hope you liked my post.

Thanks for visiting!

References:
1.Text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemist_(novel)