A sparkling collection of little gems made of ink and paper
Today, somewhere, a treasure awaits you. Today, perhaps, this light and lovely collection of stories and parables — Maktub by Paulo Coelho — may be that treasure for you.
An inspirational companion to The Alchemist, Maktub is a collection of stories and parables, many with a spiritual message.
None of them are new and, strictly speaking, neither is Maktub as its contents date back 30 years or more. The Alchemist, the bestselling motivational novel that put Coelho on the map, was published in 1988.
The Brazilian author is now 77 and has sold more than 320-million books, with translations in dozens of languages.
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947, Coelho now lives in Geneva, Switzerland. Among his many accolades, he is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and a UN Messenger of Peace.
One of his early forays into writing, however, was a newspaper column titled “Maktub”, which translates as “it is written”.
As any writer will tell you, a daily column is a huge challenge.
Coelho himself admits that the discipline needed to commit to it was at times a burden.
“What with frequent trips abroad to promote my books, the daily column became a real torment,” he writes.
However, he persevered and was then able to choose a selection of these columns for the book.
Originally published in Brazil in 1994, it has now been translated from the original Portuguese by Margaret Jill Costa and this slight hardback is the result.
The chapters are all short: some are only a few sentences; none are more than two pages.
This makes it ideal for modern readers who may be snatching moments from their busy day to feed their soul.
I loved it, and now want to revisit The Alchemist, which has been gathering dust on my bookshelf for decades.
Many of you may have read that lyrical novel centred on Santiago, a Spanish shepherd boy who sets off on a quest to find a secret treasure. The Alchemist was the kind of book that you either loved or hated.
Purists and cynics can find Coelho trite or overblown, and lump his work in the same category as Rhinda Byrne’s The Secret and other self-help or motivational titles aimed at wistful teenagers and lost souls. Though it may be debatable whether it is literature, there is no doubting The Alchemist’s immense impact on lives around the world.
The path to finding happiness, enlightenment or spiritual fulfilment, of course, will vary from individual to individual.
However, the author’s foreword, “Before We Begin”, spells out that Maktub is not a book offering advice, or “how to”.
Rather, it is an exchange of experiences, many of which sparkle like little gems in a treasure chest made of ink and paper.