The author of ‘The Alchemist’ talks about embracing the feminine face of God, the pope, and where his soul goes when he dances.
Interview by Valerie Reiss
Last fall, when I did a live online chat with the best-selling Brazilian author of “The Alchemist” and about 14 other novels, I was astounded by his sheer internationality. Talking to me in New York from his hotel in Milan, questions from his fans poured in from Egypt, Sweden, Spain, Iran. They wanted to know where he gets his ideas, what are his rituals, how they can search for their own inner treasure. And that is the amazing fame of Paulo Coelho””his books, translated into 65 languages, touch people everywhere, often deeply, with their seemingly simple spiritual messages. Critics tend to slough off his novels as simplistic””especially American critics””but readers don’t seem to care: He’s sold 85 million books (“The Alchemist” alone has sold 30 million copies) in more than 150 countries.
The surprisingly amiable, 59-year-old author went another round with me recently, calling from his home in Paris to chat about his latest book, “The Witch of Portobello,” why he loves to dance, his ambivalent Catholicism, and why it’s important to embrace love even if it makes us suffer.
How did you decide to write about a witch?
First, I was thinking about [elaborating] on the feminine side of God. Something that we don’t pay a lot of attention, at least in our civilization. The major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, they deny somehow that God has a feminine face. However, if you go to the holy texts, you see there is this feminine presence. Second, I [wanted to] connect this subject with the visible reality, meaning what’s around us. Everything for me is sacred, beginning with earth, but also going to things made by man.
Finally, “The Witch of Portobello” is about people who dare to take some steps towards an unconventional spiritual path. And they are immediately labeled as witches–and well, witch is a word full of prejudices. The book is about that. A witch was a person who never complied with the established rules, and always tried to dare and to go beyond and to celebrate life, and to love and to have joy and pleasure while doing this.
In the book a character says, “All women are witches.” Do you mean that as a positive thing?
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society. We try to see reality as just a physical thing and that it does not go beyond that. But what we have to do, women included, is to develop more this feminine side, meaning intuition, meaning being open to a new perception of reality which, in general, women are much more open to.
Why do you think many people are so threatened by the feminine face of God?
Why do you think many people are so threatened by the feminine face of God?
Because that demands that we accept more love as the only guidance in your life. And we don’t do that because we are afraid to suffer. We’re going to lose control. We’re going to be dragged to a path that we don’t know.
Why is love so hard for most of us to accept?
Why is love so hard for most of us to accept?
Because it implies suffering. You know that. And well, first, love is the most important emotion in life. And second, it is also the one that is wild, that can take us to heaven or hell. I’m not saying that love always takes you to heaven. Your life can become a nightmare. But that said, it is worth taking the risk.
There’s always a tension, in your books between losing the spiritual path in romantic human love. Is that how you see it?
There’s always a tension, in your books between losing the spiritual path in romantic human love. Is that how you see it?
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Which is not something to fear.
But it seems like your characters fear that quite a bit.
But it seems like your characters fear that quite a bit.
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