Posted May 2, 2013
By ALEJANDRA GUTIERREZ
“Manuscript Found in Accra” is the new book written by Paulo Coelho. The novel is a mixture of fact and fiction in which Coelho tells his version of a manuscript that contains timeless words, told by a Greek scholar to the population of Jerusalem: “Success it’s being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”
With his imaginary and creative style, Coelho takes you into your deepest spiritual concerns and answers questions on topics such as love, loyalty, friendship, forgiveness, self-control, beauty, sex, forgiveness, wisdom, death, and the future.
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist who has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Well known for his book, The Alchemist, Coelho has sold more than 140 million books in 168 countries and 73 languages.
The author begins by talking about how he got access to this mysterious manuscript. According to his version, the manuscript was discovered in 1974 in Egypt by an English archaeologist, Sir Walter Wilkinson, right at the same region where three decades earlier the manuscripts of Nag Hammadi, also known as Apocrypha, were found.
According to Coelho, the parchment is real and he had access to it thanks to Wilkinson’s son, who he met a Christmas Eve on 1982 in Wales. This book is a transcription of the manuscript found in Accra.
It is up to the reader to give credibility to the writing; however, the author’s goal is to convey a set of values that are universal, and that show how nothing has changed the needs and concerns of human beings throughout the course of the years.
The book takes us back to July 14, 1099, with troops surrounding the Crusaders, preparing to invade Jerusalem. The inhabitants of the city are invited to choose between abandoning the city or fight to death in a defeat that will be safe for the infinite superiority of the invading army. In the atrium where Pontius Pilate delivered Jesus to the crowd to be crucified, a group of Muslims, Christians and Jews, men and women of all ages, get together tomeet someone known as Coptic.
This mysterious yet wise man, asked to forget the troops surrounding the city and to prepare themselves to leave a legacy to future generations as foreseen that the world will not change much in the next thousand years.
Structured into short chapters, the book offers incredible advices based on historical events, which defend the universal values: tolerance and respect, something laudable and necessary today.
The book invites us to reflect on our existence, to assess priority and learn to adapt to different circumstances by being brave and risking failure because “the losers are those who do not fail. Defeat is for the brave, those who may have the honor of losing and the joy of winning.”
- Title: “Manuscript Found in Accra”
- Author: Paulo Coelho
- Publisher: Random House, Inc.
- Availability: Amazon.com and local bookstores.
- Publication date: The novel, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies, was first released in July 2012 in Brazil in its original language, Portuguese. It was later translated to Spanish and published to South America and Central America in November of 2012. It will be released in all other countries, including the United States in Spring 2013.