Efthimios Atsaloglou Team #3 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 The author of the Alchemist is Paulo Coelho, who was born in Brazil in 1947. He has received multiple international awards. He has been given the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He has the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author (The Alchemist), which has been translated into 80 languages. He wrote “The Alchemist” in just 2 weeks, because the story was “already written in his soul”. Other works of him include “The Pilgrimage”, “Eleven Minutes”, “Adultery” and more. In addition “The Alchemist” talks about a dream that a young, adventurous Andalusian shepherd, Santiago sees every night. He sees a child in his dream telling him to go find a treasure at the foot of the Egyptian pyramids, whenever he falls asleep under a sycamore, which is growing out of the ruins of a church. As a result, Santiago goes to a gypsy to verify the dream and the gypsy tells him to travel to Egypt. Then he meets an old man, named Melchizedek, who claims to be his Personal Legend and encourages him to go to Egypt as well. He sells his flock and crosses Spain to Tangier. When he arrives there, a thief robs him and he is forced to work in a crystal merchant. He learns a lot of lessons there from the merchant and helps him grow his business by taking some risks and gathers enough money in a year in order to set off for the Egyptian pyramids again. He joins a caravan crossing Sahara all the way to Egypt. There he meets an Englishman, who is studying to become an alchemist. He learns many things about the Englishman himself and about alchemy, such as that the secret of alchemy is carved on a stone called Emerald Tablet and the ultimate creation of alchemy is called Master Work, which consists of the Elixir of Life, which can cure all diseases and the Philosophers Stone, which can turn lead into gold. On his way to the pyramids, the Englishman tells Santiago, he will be stopping in the Al – Fayoum oasis in order to meet a 200 year old alchemist and learn about the secrets of alchemy. Once the caravan arrives in Al – Fayoum, they need to take an extended stop to avoid hostile tribes and wars that happen between those tribes. While there, Santiago meets a local girl Fatima and falls in love with her. One day as he was walking in the desert he saw an omen, which showed that the oasis is in danger. He quickly notifies the chieftains that something dangerous will happen. The chieftains listen to Santiago and therefore they successfully block the incoming attack. Hearing about what happened, the alchemist tells Santiago to join him on a trip into the desert, in which he learns the importance of listening to his heart and pursuing his Personal Legend. Therefore Santiago leaves Fatima, which also tells him to go follow his Personal Legend, to join the alchemist on a trip to the desert. While travelling the alchemist shares his wisdom and knowledge about the Soul of the World with Santiago. When close enough to the pyramids, they both get captured by Arab soldiers, who think they are spies. The alchemist gives them all of Santiago’s money and puts his and Santiago’s life on the table, telling the soldiers that Santiago is a powerful alchemist, who will transform into the wind in three days. Santiago has no idea how to do that and the following days he starts consulting the desert and on the final day he talks with the wind and Sun and persuades them to help him make a powerful sandstorm, which makes him disappear from one place and reappear on another place. The Arab tribesmen let him and the alchemist free, after Santiago demonstrating his power to them. When they arrive to a Coptic monastery couple hours away from the pyramids, Santiago and the alchemist part ways. Before that happens, the alchemist shows Santiago how to make gold from lead by using the Philosophers Stone and gives gold. Then Santiago arrives in the pyramids and starts digging for the treasure. He kept digging and digging for the treasure, when two men show up, beat him up, take all his gold and then one of men tells him that dreaming is useless by telling him about his own dream, which involves a treasure buried in an abandoned church somewhere in Spain, where a sycamore tree grows. Santiago then realized, where the location of the treasure was and went back to Spain, found the treasure filled with jewels and gold and then made plans to go back to Al – Fayoum, where Fatima is waiting for him. The time that story in “The Alchemist” occurs in an indistinct time in the past, which is clearly pre – modern, therefore vehicles and modern technological advancements did not exist. However the technology used in the book was guns, compass and ships. The guns gave the people attacking power and power to enforce themselves over others. It was observed during the tribal wars and when the alchemist and the boy got captured by the Arab soldiers. Compasses gave people a sense of direction and made people more coordinated and more time efficient as they arrive to their destination faster. Compass was used from the caravan in order to get to the Oasis. Finally the ships gave people the opportunity to exchange products with each other, expand their businesses, exchange culture with each other and arrive to destinations not reachable by foot. Boat was used by the boy, when he went from Spain to Tangier and then later went back to Spain. The technology used at the time period in the book is certainly used nowadays. In today’s society we still use ships, compasses and guns. We have more advanced ships today for multiple purposes (entertainment, trade, business). We utilize ships to transport equipment, food, supplies and materials. Additionally we utilize compasses in ships and in some cases mountains to navigate ourselves and arrive in our preferred destinations much faster. Finally we utilized guns nowadays. Guns possession is legal in some countries, while it is prohibited in some others. Guns are used in today’s society to regulate control of people and more advanced guns are being nowadays in order to protect our own kind and establish some type of dominance. .