Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho

Like the Flowing River 2009

Interview for Globo/G1 (Brazilian news portal maintained by Grupo Globo) about “Like the Flowing River” (2009)

 

You are right in saying that the book has a common thread. I tried to select the texts that express my experiences, my reflections on the moments I spent or am going through.

You wrote about the mute of celebrities in your last work, “The winner is alone”.

I don’t have any projects at the moment. The “winner is alone” started his international career a month ago, in Russia, and in early April it was published in English-speaking countries. Today it’s published in France. Although I am no longer directly involved in promoting the new titles, I need time to be able to live, meet people, travel, and little by little discover a subject that I am interested in turning into a book. So far, I have had no idea.

Fame is good when you can enjoy the doors it opens. For example, today I can travel to the interior of China, for example, and there I will find readers who will show me their city in a completely different way. Or I can meet people I have always been curious to meet in person. Fame is bad when you become a slave to it, and you can’t live outside the spotlight.

I regret opening the chest. But Fernando was absolutely faithful to the content. The book is journalistically very well written, impeccable, but the spiritual side is absent.

An example: when I prepared to select the texts of “Like a Flowing River”, there were ten years old columns (which means approximately 3,650 texts), all written with a lot of love and enthusiasm. It is an impossible task to delegate. I was absolutely lonely.

Thank God I still have many unfulfilled wishes. That’s what life is all about: trying to push your own limits. I still keep my childhood curiosity intact.

Because I think there are people who are less fortunate, who don’t have the money to buy a book, and libraries don’t always have the money to meet all their needs. What are the books doing on the shelf in a house: showing how cultured their residents are? Every day they publish new and interesting things. I kept some that I like to reread, and the rest I give to friends or libraries.

Answering this question would make a book.

Details

Language: Portuguese Publication Date: 2009

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