Paulo Coelho

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2005

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Paulo Coelho. Paulo Coelho is a publishing phenomenon - his books have sold more than 65 million copies and he counts Bill Clinton and Madonna among his readers. His most popular work and the one that earned him an international reputation is The Alchemist - a slender tale of a shepherd boy who risked everything to pursue his dreams. Coelho's detractors say his books are little more than self-help manuals - but his readers say their lives really have been changed by the simple wisdom of his stories. Paulo Coelho's life is as extraordinary as any work of fiction. He was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 to middle class parents who wanted him to become a lawyer. But, since winning his first literary prize in a school poetry competition, Paulo was determined to be a writer. His parents disapproved and, alarmed at their son's wayward lifestyle, repeatedly had him commited to an institution where he was given electric shock therapy. He later found success writing song lyrics - but his words were deemed subversive by the military police and he was captured and tortured. He was 40 years old before he finally pursued his own dream and started writing novels and he is now one of the most succesful writers in the world. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Symphony No 9 by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: The complete works by Oscar Wilde Luxury: A trip around my island on Concorde

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Cresti Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive for
0:05.4	rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.6	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lolley.
0:14.1	My Guastaway this week is a novelist. Today he lives here in the countryside on the edge of the
0:33.9	Pyrenees in southwest France, a sort of resting place, perhaps after a long journey through
0:39.2	his life so far.
0:41.1	He was born into a middle-class family in Rio de Janeiro, who wasn't an easy child,
0:46.2	and as a teenager his parents put him into a psychiatric hospital where he was given
0:50.2	an electric shock treatment.
0:52.4	In his 20s he became part of Brazil's alternative society, a cultural antidote to the military
0:58.5	dictatorship of the time.
1:00.3	He dabbled in drugs and black magic and wrote lyrics for pop songs which made him rich.
1:05.8	Later sacked from his job he travelled around Europe searching for a meaning to his life.
1:11.3	Eventually 16 years ago now he wrote a book called The Alchemist, which together with others
1:17.2	he's written since have made him one of the most popular writers in the world today.
1:22.6	Here's a story of spiritual achievement, of human journeys on which his characters pursue
1:28.6	their dreams and find success.
1:31.8	We must get rid of the idea of fulfilling what people expect us to do, he says, and start
1:37.3	doing what we expect from our lives.
1:40.2	He is Paolo Cuello.
1:42.8	You write Paolo alluringly about the pursuit of dreams and your message is that we can
1:48.4	all pursue them and we can all achieve them.
	...

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