Hippie

Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, best-selling author Paulo Coelho takes us back in time to re-live the dreams of a generation that longed for peace and dared to challenge the established social order. In Hippie, he tells the story of a young Brazilian man, Paulo, and Karla, a Dutch woman in her twenties, who share a journey of self-discovery aboard the Magic Bus, as it travels from Amsterdam to Kathmandu in 1970. In his most autobiographical novel to date, Paulo Coelho interweaves adventure, philosophy, and the true stories of his own life to give readers an essential book for our time.

In Hippie, Paulo Coelho takes us back in time to re-live the dream of a generation that longed for peace and dared to challenge the established social order--authoritarian politics, conservative modes of behavior, excessive consumerism, and an unbalanced concentration of wealth and power.

Following the "three days of peace and music" at Woodstock, the 1969 gathering in Bethel, New York that would change the world forever, hippie paradises began to emerge all around the world. In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music, and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.

At this time, Paulo is a young, skinny Brazilian with a goatee and long, flowing hair who wants to become a writer. He sets off on a journey in search of freedom and a deeper meaning for his life: first, with a girlfriend, on the famous "Death Train to Bolivia," then on to Peru and later hitchhiking through Chile and Argentina.

His travels take him further, to the famous square in Amsterdam, where Paulo meets Karla. She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip to Nepal, aboard the Magic Bus that travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. They embark on a journey in the company of fascinating fellow travelers, each of whom has a story to tell, and each of whom will undergo a transformation, changing their priorities and values, along the way. As they travel together, Paulo and Karla explore their own relationship, an awakening on every level that brings both of them to a choice and a decision that sets the course for their lives thereafter.

One of the most influential writers of our time, PAULO COELHO is the author of many international best sellers, including The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, Adultery, Eleven Minutes, and The Spy. Translated into 80 languages, his books have sold more than 225 million copies in more than 170 countries . He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and has received the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur. In 2007, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Translated by Eric M. B. Becker.