''Aleph'' is a 2011 novel by the
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian writer
Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho de Souza (, ; born 24 August 1947) is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002. His novel ''The Alchemist'' became an international best-seller and he has published 28 more books ...
. An autobiographical account, it is his fourteenth major book, and touches on the theme of
spirituality
The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...
. ''Aleph'' was written in Coelho's native language,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
.
The book tells the story of his own
epiphany
Epiphany may refer to:
* Epiphany (feeling), an experience of sudden and striking insight
Religion
* Epiphany (holiday), a Christian holiday celebrating the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ
** Epiphany season, or Epiph ...
while on a pilgrimage through
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
in 2006 on the
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...
. The title of the novel is based on
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...
’ short story "
The Aleph", from 1945. (Aleph is the first letter of the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
alphabet, with many mystical meanings.) Coelho spent four years gathering information for the book and wrote it in three weeks.
Prefacing her ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' interview with Coelho about the novel, Julie Bosman described the author as “a
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
mystic”. Another reviewer, while admitting the difficulty of dealing with profound concepts in a popular work, noted that “throughout the story, Coelho's tendency to describe spiritual concepts in simple terms borders on
cliché
A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
”.
[Traci J. Macnamara, "Synopsis and Review of Paulo Coelho's Aleph." ThoughtCo, Sep. 27, 2017, thoughtco.com/aleph-book-review-852031]
References
.
Novels by Paulo Coelho
2011 Brazilian novels
21st-century Brazilian novels
HarperCollins books
Novels set in Siberia
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