"The Alchemist" was published by Harper San Francisco Publishing House in 1993. It is a very small book of only about 170 pages.

About the author Paulo Coelho:

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1947. He started to write after he travelled a lot through the world. After the success of his book "The Alchemist", he became one of the famous best-selling authors. Thirty million copies of "The Alchemist" have been sold and the book has been translated into 42 languages. Paulo Coelho's literature is more for people who look for warmth rather than excitement.     Critics praise his poetic, realistic and philosophical style of writing with its symbolic language.

Before he became a novelist he was a theatre director, a hippie, a songwriter for Brazil's most famous pop stars and a journalist     Other books he wrote are "The Pilgrimage", "Brida", "The Valkyries", "Maktub", "By...