By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 24, 1947. As a teenager, Coelho wished to become a writer, but his mother had a different opinion when he told her, “Dear; your father is an engineer, a logical, practical man, with a very clear vision of the world.” Do you really know what it means to be a writer?” At the age of sixteen, Coelho's introversion and resistance to the traditional ways of life led his parents to send him to a mental institution, which led him to flee from it three times before he was finally released from it at the age of twenty! Coelho later commented, "It wasn't that they (his parents) wanted to hurt me, they just didn't know what to do with me. They didn't do it to destroy me, but to keep me." and in accordance with the wishes of his parents; Coelho goes to law school and abandons his old dream of becoming a writer. and one year later; Coelho left school and lived a bohemian life, traveling to many places; South America, North Africa, Mexico, Europe, and began taking drugs in the 1960s. Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter for some singers, and was arrested in 1974 on charges of "subversive acts" during the prevailing military rule at the time, which considered Coelho's lyric compositions a dangerous "leftist"! Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theater director before turning entirely to writing.