The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho, 1988
An Andalusian shepherd dreams again and again of a treasure by the Egyptian pyramids. He sells his sheep, loses all his money on the very first day in Africa, works for almost a year for a crystal merchant, crosses the desert, and meets love and a teacher. Coelho's parable is about why people give up their dreams, and what the one who keeps going to the end finds.
Who it is for
For people who have put off their dream for years, and for readers curious about why a short parable about a shepherd became one of the most read books in the world.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
The Dream That Kept Coming Back
The young shepherd Santiago spends the night with his sheep in an abandoned church. Around him is Andalusia, the south of Spain. Right inside, among the ruins, a sycamore has grown. Santiago falls asleep with a book under his head and, not for the first time, sees the same dream: somewhere by the Egyptian pyramids, a treasure is waiting for him.
His life is not bad as it is. His father wanted his son to become a priest, but Santiago chose the road: he tends sheep so that he can wander the world. He can read, and in one town lives a merchant's daughter, to whom he used to tell stories of his travels and to whom he plans to return. Why change a life like this because of a dream?
That question holds the whole of The Alchemist. Paulo Coelho published it in Brazil in 1988. It is a parable: the shepherd's story speaks about any person who once had a dream. In youth, dreaming is not frightening, and everything seems possible. Then we are gradually persuaded that the desire cannot be fulfilled. What happens to the one who nevertheless gets up and goes?
Ahead you will follow Santiago the whole way, from a square in a Spanish town to the pyramids and back. Each chapter has one turn of his road, the thought he takes from it, and a question with which you can try that thought on your own life. We begin on the day a strange old man sat down beside the shepherd.
The Greatest Lie in the World: That Nothing Depends on Us
In the town of Tarifa there lives an old gypsy woman, and Santiago goes to her first thing. She reads the dream simply: he must set out for the pyramids and look for the treasure there. For her reading she asks a tenth of whatever he finds. The shepherd leaves disappointed.
In the town square an old man sits down beside him and starts a conversation about his book. He calls himself Melchizedek, king of Salem, and speaks of things Santiago has never told anyone: the names of his parents, the seminary. Then he explains what the greatest lie in the world is. It is the belief that at some point in life we lose power over what happens to us, and from then on fate runs us.
According to the old man, each person has a Personal Legend: the thing they have truly wanted since youth. While a person is young, they know it and are not afraid to dream of it. Then fear and habit step in. And then it seems that life has settled itself and there is nothing left to change.
The old man also explains why beginners are often lucky. A person who sits down at cards for the first time almost certainly wins. According to Melchizedek, this is how a force works that wants a person to fulfil their Personal Legend: at the start of the road, it lets them taste success.
Melchizedek promises to show where the treasure is, and asks for a tenth of the sheep in return. Santiago hesitates. The sheep, the familiar fields and the merchant's daughter hold him the way anchors hold a boat at the quay. He has to choose between what he is used to and what draws him. He sells the flock and gives the old man six sheep.
In return the king gives him two stones, Urim and Thummim. The black one answers yes, the white one answers no: they can be asked when a sign is hard to understand. And signs, says the old man, are the language in which the world speaks to a person, and it is worth learning to read them.
The old man also tells a parable. A merchant sent his son to a wise man to learn the secret of happiness. The wise man gave the youth a spoon with two drops of oil and told him to walk round the palace without spilling a drop. The youth came back with a full spoon, but he had seen no gardens, no library, none of the beautiful things in the palace. So the wise man sent him out again to admire all the wonders. The youth looked at everything, but he spilled the oil. The secret of happiness, said the wise man, is to see all the wonders of the world and not forget the drops of oil in the spoon. Santiago understands the parable in his own way: a shepherd may love travelling, but he must not forget his sheep.
This chapter is easy to try on yourself. What did you dream of at fifteen? What seems impossible now, and who convinced you of it: real circumstances, or fear and habit? The old man does not promise that the road will be easy. He only refuses to believe that the choice has already been made for you.
About the author
Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 in Rio de Janeiro. The Alchemist made the Brazilian writer one of the most translated authors in the world.
All books by this author: Paulo Coelho
Terms from the book
- Parable
- Philosopher's Stone
- Scarab
- Santiago: The hero of the novel, a young shepherd from Andalusia. His father wanted him to become a priest, but the youth chose the road.
- Andalusia: A historical region in the south of Spain. Santiago tends sheep here, and at the end he returns here.
- Sycamore: A southern tree of the fig family, also called the sycamore fig. In the novel a sycamore grows inside the abandoned church where the shepherd spends the night.
- Tarifa: A town at the very south of Spain, by a strait beyond which Africa begins. Here Santiago meets the gypsy woman and the old king.
- Melchizedek: In the Bible, the king of Salem and a priest who blessed Abraham and received a tenth of his spoils. In the novel this is the name of the mysterious old man who sends the shepherd on his way.
- Personal Legend: The key idea of the novel: the work a person has truly wanted to do since youth.
- Urim and Thummim: In the Bible, objects in the high priest's breastplate through which God's will was sought. In the novel they are two stones: the black one answers yes, the white one answers no.
- Tangier: A port city in northern Morocco, at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The first African city on Santiago's road.
- Mecca: The main holy city of Islam, in Arabia. Every devout Muslim dreams of making the pilgrimage there at least once in a lifetime, and the crystal merchant is no exception.
- Maktub: An Arabic word that in the novel means “it is written”: what is destined and predetermined from above.
- Caravan: A group of travellers with camels and loads who cross the desert together. It is safer than going alone.
- Alchemy: An ancient teaching about the transformation of substances. Alchemists sought a way to turn base metals into gold and to obtain the elixir of life.
- Oasis: A place in the desert with water and trees. In the novel, by custom, an oasis counts as neutral: the wars of the desert are not fought in it.
- Al-Fayoum: An oasis in the desert where the caravan arrives. The alchemist lives there, and there Santiago meets Fatima. The real Fayoum lies in Egypt, south of Cairo.
- Soul of the World: A concept from the novel, not from science: a single force of which, in the view of the characters, everything living and non-living is a part. It helps the one who follows his dream.
- Fatima: A girl from the oasis with whom Santiago falls in love. She lets him go to look for the treasure and promises to wait.
- Copts: Egyptian Christians. In a Coptic monastery the alchemist turns lead into gold and says goodbye to Santiago.
All terms
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