【分享】《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》（英文名：The Alchemist）前言

今天偶然看到这本《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》英文版的前言，作者写得很诚恳，这本书的出版经历也很让人深思。分享给大家，有机会可以读读这本书。

Foreword

When 【The Alchemist】 was firstpublished twenty-five years ago in my native Brazil, no one noticed. Abookseller in the northeast corner of the country told me that only one personpurchased a copy the first week of its release. It took another six months forthe bookseller to unload a second copy—and that was to the same person whobought the first! And who knows how long it took to sell the third.

By the end of the year, it was clear toeveryone that 【The Alchemist】 wasn’t working. My original publisher decided to cut me loose andcancelled our contract. They wiped their hands of the project and let me takethe book with me. I was forty-one and desperate.

But I never lost faith in the book or everwavered in my vision. Why? Because it was me in there, all of me, heart andsoul. I was living my own metaphor. A man sets out on a journey, dreaming of abeautiful or magical place, in pursuit of some unknown treasure. At the end ofhis journey, the man realizes the treasure was with him the entire time. I wasfollowing my Personal Legend, and my treasure was my capacity to write. And Iwanted to share this treasure with the world.

As I wrote in 【TheAlchemist】, when you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you.I started knocking on the doors of other publishers. One opened, and thepublisher on the other side believed in me and my book and agreed to give 【TheAlchemist】 a second chance. Slowly, through word of mouth, it finally startedto sell—three thousand, then six thousand, ten thousand—book by book, graduallythroughout the year.

Eight months later, an American visitingBrazil picked up a copy of 【The Alchemist】 in a local bookstore. He wanted to translate the book and help me finda publisher in the United States. HarperCollins agreed to bring it to anAmerican audience, publishing it with great fanfare: ads in the 【New YorkTimes】 and influential news magazines, radio and television interviews.But it still took some time to sell, slowly finding its audience in the UnitedStates by word of mouth, just as it did in Brazil. And then one day, BillClinton was photographed leaving the White House with a copy. Then Madonnaraved about the book to 【Vanity Fair】, and people from different walks of life—from Rush Limbaugh andWill Smith to college students and soccer moms—were suddenly talking about it.

【The Alchemist】 became a spontaneous—and organic—Phenomenon. The book hit the 【New YorkTimes】 bestseller list, an important milestone for any author, and stayedthere for more than three hundred weeks. It has since been translated into morethan eighty different languages, the most translated book by any living author,and is widely considered one of the ten best books of the twentieth century.

People continue to ask me if I knew 【TheAlchemist】 would be such a huge success. The answer is no. I had no idea. Howcould I? When I sat down to write 【The Alchemist】, all I knewis that I wanted to write about my soul. I wanted to write about my quest tofind my treasure. I wanted to follow the omens, because I knew even then thatthe omens are the language of God.

Though 【The Alchemist】 is nowcelebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, it is no relic of the past. The bookis still very much alive. Like my heart and like my soul, it continues to liveevery day, because my heart and soul are in it. And my heart and soul is yourheart and soul. I am Santiago the shepherd boy in search of my treasure, justas you are Santiago the shepherd boy in search of your own. The story of oneperson is the story of everyone, and one man’s quest is the quest of all ofhumanity, which is why I believe 【The Alchemist】 continues all these years later to resonate with people fromdifferent cultures all around the world, touching them emotionally andspiritually, equally, without prejudice.

I re-read 【The Alchemist】 regularlyand every time I do I experience the same sensations I felt when I wrote it.And here is what I feel. I feel happiness, because it is all of me, and all ofyou simultaneously. I feel happiness, too, because I know I can never be alone.Wherever I go, people understand me. They understand my soul. This continues togive me hope. When I read about clashes around the world—political clashes,economic clashes, cultural clashes—I am reminded that it is within our power tobuild a bridge to be crossed. Even if my neighbor doesn’t understand myreligion or understand my politics, he can understand my story. If he canunderstand my story, then he’s never too far from me. It is always within mypower to build a bridge. There is always a chance for reconciliation, a chancethat one day he and I will sit around a table together and put an end to ourhistory of clashes. And on this day, he will tell me his story and I will tellhim mine.

—— Paulo Coelho, 2014