The Alchemist (novel)

The Alchemist, published in Portuguese as O Alquimista, is a novel by the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, first published in 1988, with an English translation following in 1993. Written in the spare, fable-like style of an allegory, it follows Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams repeatedly of finding hidden treasure at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids; after a fortune-teller and an old man who claims to be a king encourage him to pursue the dream, Santiago sells his flock and sets out across North Africa. Along the way he is robbed, works for a crystal merchant, falls in love with a desert woman named Fatima, and is guided in the ways of listening to omens and to what Coelho calls the Soul of the World by an alchemist he meets in the desert; when he finally reaches the pyramids and begins to dig, he is themselves robbed again by bandits, who mockingly reveal that they once dreamed of treasure buried in a ruined church back in Spain, the very church where Santiago's own journey began. Framed throughout as a parable about recognizing and pursuing one's personal calling, the book became one of the best-selling novels in history, translated into more than sixty-five languages and selling upward of 150 million copies worldwide.