Summary of The Alchemist: by Paulo Coelho | Includes Analysis

By Instaread Summaries

Summary of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho | Includes Analysis

 

 

Preview:

The Alchemist is a Brazilian novel about a shepherd named Santiago, an 18-year-old youth who abandons his life in Spain to embark upon an epic treasure hunt across Africa. Making

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781945048470

Book preview

Summary

The Alchemist is a Brazilian novel about a shepherd named Santiago, an 18-year-old youth who abandons his life in Spain to embark upon an epic treasure hunt across Africa. Making several unexpected stops along the way, he uncovers profound truths about himself, the world, and the kingdom of God, which are fundamentally connected. Ultimately, he finds the treasure, but along the way he also finds love and personal fulfillment.

At 16, Santiago, who had been studying to become a priest, had defied his parents’ wishes and set off to travel across Andalusia with a herd of sheep. The story picks up two years later. The boy has been leading his sheep all this time. Lovesick, he’s thinking about settling down with the daughter of a merchant he met the year before. As he contemplates the future, he feels anxious, hopeful, and full of questions.

As he nears the town where the merchant and his daughter live, the boy spends the night at an abandoned church. There, near a huge sycamore tree, he has the latest in a series of recurring dreams about treasure. The next day, he asks a Gypsy woman to decipher his dreams for him. After forcing the boy to promise to give her 10 percent of the treasure if and when he finds it, the woman tells him it is hidden among the Egyptian pyramids. This is all the information she can offer.

That afternoon, the boy meets an