Paulo Coelho: A Warrior's Life
Page 52
PAULO COELHO INSTITUTE
The Paulo Coelho Institute is a non-profit organization financed entirely from the writer’s royalties and managed by Belina Antunes, the mother of his agent, Mônica. From time to time, Paulo makes large contributions from his other activities. The Institute’s main aim is to give opportunities to underprivileged and excluded members of Brazilian society, particularly children and the elderly. The Solar Meninos da Luz, founded in 1996, is co-sponsored by the Paulo Coelho Institute, which makes an annual contribution of US$400,000. The school offers entirely free education to 430 needy children in the Pavão-Pavãozinho e Cantagalo favela in Rio de Janeiro.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book started life at the beginning of 2005 at Saint-Exupéry airport, in Lyons, in the south of France, when I met Paulo Coelho for the first time. As a journalist, I was used to accompanying international names and stars and imagined I would find him surrounded by bodyguards, secretaries and assistants. To my surprise, the man with whom I would spend much of the following three years turned up alone, with a rucksack on his back and dragging a small suitcase on wheels. It was there that the excavation began that would reveal one of the most extraordinary individuals I have ever worked with.
After six weeks at his side, I returned to Brazil. Since the entire course of his life has revolved around Rio, I moved there and spent eight months following the trails left by the writer. I looked for Paulo Coelho everywhere and probed behind the events that had left so many scars. I searched for him in the dark alleys of the roughest areas of Copacabana, among the records of the insane and the ruins of what had once been Dr Eiras’s clinic, in the dangerous world of drugs, in files dating from the years of political repression in Brazil, in satanism, in mysterious secret societies, in his partnership with Raul Seixas, in his family and his genealogy. I talked to friends and those who had fallen out with him, interviewed many of his ex-lovers and spent some time with his present–and, he vows, his last–partner, the artist Christina Oiticica. I rummaged through his life, dug deep into his private affairs, read his will, studied his medications, read his bank statements, felt in his pockets and searched for the children I imagined must have resulted from his various relationships and love affairs.
I won a bet with him that gave me access to a treasure that he had decided was to be burnt after his death: a trunk that held forty years of diaries, many of them recorded on cassette tapes. I spent weeks closeted in the Paulo Coelho Institute scanning documents, photos, old diaries and letters both received and sent. Once my time in Rio was over, I again accompanied him on trips to various corners of the earth with a recorder slung over my shoulder, listening to his nasal voice and to his comments, and watching that strange tic he has of flicking away non-existent flies from his eyes. I went with him on the road to Santiago de Compostela, I saw how moved he was on meeting a group of ordinary readers in Oñati, in the Spanish Basque country and in Cairo, and I watched him being acclaimed by men in black ties and women in long dresses at banquets held in his honour in Paris and Hamburg.
I put together the pieces left behind by Paulo Coelho throughout his sixty years, and the result is this book. Although the responsibility for everything written here is mine alone, I must acknowledge the help of the dozens of people who helped me along the way. Firstly, my old friend Wagner Homem. I asked him to apply his expertise to organizing the vast quantity of data, interviews and documents that I accumulated during three years of research. He ended up moving into my house, where for ten uninterrupted months he worked on that, as well as reading and re-reading the final text and making valuable suggestions for improving it. My gratitude must also go to two brothers: one putative, Ricardo Setti, who has long been in charge of quality control with regard to my books and whose talent has saved me at the most difficult moments, and one real, Reinaldo Morais, who moved heaven and earth to make sure that the book reached its final destination safely.
I must also thank all those who generously collaborated on this book, the many people I interviewed and the researchers, journalists, trainees and stringers who found and interviewed the individuals who have given life, colour and human warmth to this story. These are: Adriana Negreiros, Afonso Borges, Aldo Bocchini Neto, Alfonso Molinero, Ana Carolina da Motta, Ana Paula Granello, Antônio Carlos Monteiro de Castro, Armando Antenore, Armando Perigo, The Association of Old Boys of the St Ignatius College, Áurea Soares de Oliveira, Áureo Sato, Beatriz de Medeiros de Souza, Belina Antunes, Carina Gomes, Carlos Augusto Setti, Carlos Heitor Cony, Carlos Lima, Célia Valente, Cláudio Humberto Rosa e Silva, César Polcino Milies, Dasha Balashova, Denis Kuck, Devanir Barbosa Paes, Diego de Souza Martins, Eliane Lobato, Eric Nepomuceno, Evanise dos Santos, Fernando Eichenberg, Firmeza Ribeiro dos Santos, Francisco Cordeiro, Frédéric Bonomelli, Gemma Capdevila, Herve Louit, Hugo Carlo Batista Ramos, Ibarê Dantas, Inês Garçoni, Instituto Paulo Coelho and Sant Jordi Associados, Ivan Luiz de Oliveira, Ivone Kassu, Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, Joca do Som, José Antonio Martinuzzo, Juliana Perigo, Klecius Henrique, Leonardo Oiticica, Lourival Sant’Anna, Lúcia Haddad, Luciana Amorim, Luciana Franzolin, Luiz Cordeiro Mergulhão, Lyra Netto, Marcio José Domingues Pacheco, Marcio Valente, Marilia Cajaíba, Mário Magalhães, Mário Prata, Marisilda Valente, Mariza Romero, Marizilda de Castro Figueiredo, Pascoal Soto, Raphael Cardoso, Ricardo Hofstetter, Ricardo Schwab, Roberto Viana, Rodrigo Pereira Freire, Samantha Quadrat, Silvia Ebens, Silvio Essinger, Sylvio Passos, Talles Rodrigues Alves, Tatiana Marinho, Tatiane Rangel, Véronique Surrel, Vicente Paim and Wilson Moherdaui.
Finally, I would like to thank the hundreds of people from more than thirty countries who sent data, documents and photos to the website http://www.cpc.com.br/paulocoelho/, which was created in order to receive such contributions, some of whom supplied important information that I have used in this book.
Fernando Morais
Ilhabela, March 2008
THOSE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS BOOK
Acácio Paz
Afonso Galvão
Alan Clarke
Amapola Rios
André Midani
Andréa Cals
Antonio Carlos Austregésilo de Athayde
Antonio Carlos ‘Kakiko’ Dias
Antonio Cláudio de Lima Vieira
Antônio Ovídio Clement Fajardo
Antônio Walter Sena, Jr. (‘Toninho Buda’)
Arash Hejazi
Ariovaldo Bonas
Arnaldo Niskier
Arnold Bruver, Jr.
Artur da Távola
Basia Stepien
Beatriz Vallandro
Cecilia Bolocco
Cecília Mac Dowell
Chico Castro Silva
Christina Oiticica
Cristina Lacerda
Darc Costa
Dedê Conte
Eduardo Jardim de Moraes
Élide ‘Dedê’ Conte
Ernesto Emanuelle Mandarino
Eugênio Mohallen
Fabíola Fracarolli
Fernando Bicudo
Frédéric Beigbeder
Frédéric Morel
Geneviève Phalipou
Gilles Haeri
Glória Albues
Guy Jorge Ruffier
Hélio Campos Mello
Henrique Caban
Hildegard Angel
Hildebrando Goes Filho
Ilma Fontes
Índio do Brasil Lemes
Isabela Maltarolli
Ivan Junqueira
Jerry Adriani
Joel Macedo
Jorge Luiz Costa Ramos
Jorge Mourão
José Antonio Mendonça Neto
José Antonio ‘Pepe’ Domínguez
José Mário Pereira
José Reinaldo Rios de Magalhães
José Wilker
Julles Haeri
Kika Seixas
Leda Vieira de Azevedo
Lizia Azevedo
Marcelo Nova
Márcia Faria Lima
Márcia Nascimento
Marcos Medeiros Bastos
Marcos Mutti
Marcos Paraguassu Arruda Câmara
Maria Cecília Duarte Arraes de Alencar
Maria Eugênia Stein
Marie Christine Espagnac
Marilu Carvalho
Mário Sabino
Maristela Bairros
Maurício Mandarino
Michele Conte
Milton Temer
Mônica Antunes
Nelly Canellas Branco
Nelson Liano, Jr
Nelson Motta
Orietta Paz
Patrice Hoffman
Patricia Martín
Paula Braconnot
Paulo Roberto Rocco
Pedro Queima Coelho de Souza
Regina Bilac Pinto
Renato Menescal
Renato Pacca
Ricardo Sabanes
Rita Lee
Roberto Menescal
Rodrigo Meinberg
Rosana Fiengo
Serge Phalipou
Sidney Magal
Silvio Ferraz
Soizik Molkhou
Sônia Maria Coelho de Souza
Stella Paula Costa
Vera Prnjatovic Richter
Zé Rodrix
Zeca Araújo
Zuenir Ventura
PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Every effort has been made to ensure the origin and ownership of the photos used in this book. This was not always possible, particularly in the case of photos obtained from family collections or those of friends of Paulo Coelho. I should be happy to give credit to the photographers should they come forward.
About the Author
FERNANDO MORAIS is one of the most important and preeminent journalists in South America and is widely credited with making the biography a popular genre in Brazil. He is also a well-known politician and activist whose articles have stirred much debate in both his native country and South America in general. He lives in São Paulo.
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Copyright
PAULO COELHO: A WARRIOR’S LIFE: The Authorized Biography. Copyright © 2009 by Fernando Morais. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition October 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-195970-7
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* Adolf Fritz, generally called Dr Fritz, was a hypothetical German surgeon whose spirit was said to have been channelled by various psychic surgeons in Brazil, starting with Zé Arigo in the 1950s and continuing up to the present. There is no proof that he actually existed.