When Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) was a young man, his parents had him committed to mental hospitals three times because he wanted to be an artist--an unacceptable profession in Brazil at the time. During his numerous forced incarcerations he vowed to write some day about his experiences and the injustices of involuntary commitment. In this fable-l...more
"In this autobiographical tale, we follow Coelho and his wife Chris on a 40-day spiritual journey through the Mojave Desert in search of the eternal feminine. Translation has an uncertain feel and suffers from too much editing, pruning, and rearranging of the original as well as occasional misreading"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, ...more
A 19th-century boy, floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave, becomes involved with a feuding family, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt, who mistakes him for Tom.