Paolo Coelho Interview by Hannah Pool

The Winner Stands Alone is your 12th novel. You describe it as "a stark portrait of where we are now". What you do mean by that?

I wrote it in February last year, before this [financial] collapse. We have lost contact with reality, the simplicity of life. This book is about how we complicate our lives and how our dreams are manipulated.

Your most successful book, The Alchemist, has sold 30m copies.

More than that. I think it's 35m. All together my books have sold 150m copies. You can add another 20% for pirated editions.

***
Paulo Coelho talks to Hannah Pool Link to this audio

***
Is it true you wrote it in four weeks?

Two weeks. Yes. The book was already written in my soul.

When it first came out it was dropped by the publisher. Then what happened?

It was not dropped by the publisher. It was published, it did not sell, and then the publisher said, "This book is never going to sell" - which was worse than to be dropped. At least then you think, "Oh, I'll find another publisher." This way, when you go to another publisher they say, "Well, it was published and nobody's interested." However, I was so convinced it was a great book that I started knocking on doors. [Now] The Alchemist is the most translated book by a living author.

Do you really believe in angels?

Yes.