WORDS OF PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
Brazilian author Paulo Coelho was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theater director and actor, lyricist and journalist. In 1986, Paulo Coelho went on the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela, an experience later to be documented in his book The Pilgrimage. In the following year, Coelho published The Alchemist. Slow initial sales convinced his first publisher to drop the novel, but it went on to become one of the bestselling Brazilian books of all time. Paulo Coelho is a firm believer of Internet as a new media and is the first bestselling author to actively support free online distribution of his work.
REVIEW
“Whenever you have to find about something, Plunge right in!”
The above line sums up all this book is about. The book tells us the story of a young girl, Brida, who dives into sorcery and experiments with different magical traditions. She meets a wise man who dwells in a forest, who teaches her about overcoming her fears and trusting in the goodness of the world; and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the music of the world, and how to pray to the moon. As she seeks her destiny, she struggles to find a balance between her relationships and her desire to become a witch.
The book is about exploring life, learning to connect with your truest self, finding one’s soulmate in this life and feeling complete. It’s not the story in itself as much as its elements – the progression of the human soul, with all its elements (feelings, memories, experiences, people around us, thoughts, actions, choices) through time, is portrayed like a charcoal sketch – black and white, stark, with elements of the distinct unknown in various shades. The rituals and the steps culminating in a merry Sabbath party, the Tradition of the Sun and the Tradition of the Moon, the four forms of expression of the self, and the ultimate epicenter of the book – The Gift.
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