Once Again the Traveler: A Guest Post by Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho’s classic novel, The Alchemist, has inspired generations of readers, and now it has a companion in Maktub, his newest release. Paulo has penned an essay detailing the process of bringing Maktub into the world. Here he is, in his own words.
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Maktub: An Inspirational Companion to The Alchemist
Maktub: An Inspirational Companion to The Alchemist
By
Paulo Coelho
Translator
Margaret Jull Costa
In Stock Online
Hardcover $24.99
A collection of wisdom from one of the most inspiring writers of this era. These assorted stories expand on Coelho’s timeless classic, The Alchemist, proving the perfect companion to the literary marvel.
A collection of wisdom from one of the most inspiring writers of this era. These assorted stories expand on Coelho’s timeless classic, The Alchemist, proving the perfect companion to the literary marvel.
Maktub gathers together many of the daily columns I wrote in the early 1990s for Folha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s most read newspapers. I had never experienced this daily practice of addressing my readers, but it was a formative experience in my writing career.
It was difficult to address a Brazilian audience while traveling in the US to promote The Alchemist, which came out in 1993 with Harper San Francisco. My senses were flooded with an entirely different world than my readers back home, but the challenge was good for me.
It led me to honor and reflect on the wisdom I was sharing with the English reading world for the first time. This was the very beginning of what has become a phenomenal thirty-plus-year run of connecting with readers living far beyond my home. So I was reconnecting with The Alchemist through a new lens while writing these pieces.
I also felt the pull to reconnect with my master, and in doing so I discovered keys to doors I needed to pass through at that time. Take for example the master’s story about the two videos of our lives we review when it comes time for a change: one reviewing all our failures, the other the wisdom that let us carry on. It helped me embrace my expanding role as author.
I was also directly engaged with my readers, receiving mail in response to my columns and also meeting readers who were moved by these ideas as I traveled to launch the book all over the world. The personal and magical nature of these responses astonished me. Clearly this wisdom that has served me is here for all of us, and we can all feel it.
In this book we are once again the traveler, experiencing the love and the light that will fill us as we open the gates of our own spiritual architecture. I do not take credit for these ideas, but it is my honor and privilege to be their messenger to the world, their guide across cultures and languages. I never cease to discover fellow travelers who inspire and educate me as I continue my own journey.