The brazilian writer paulo coelho was in istanbul recently and answered our questions during a brief press conference.Paulo Coelho has entered the Guinness World Records Book as the living writer whose books have been translated into the most languages. The writer`s most recent book, Alef, is going to be translated into scores of languages within the year. Coelho fans in Turkey are lucky, because Turkish is the first language in which it will appear following publication of the original Portuguese.What is Alef?Alef is now, present time, the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time. I experienced a crisis of faith in 2006. Just at the moment when I said I was done for, my close friend and mentor, said, Your time has come to go. I heeded his advice and set out on a Trans-Siberian journey of exactly 9,288 kilometers. It was a journey that started from Moscow and ended at Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean.
The latest novel, Alef
The protagonist that Coelho says `is ninety percent me` feels that his development along the path to wisdom has come to a halt. So he follows the advice of his mentor `J` and sets out on a trip. A series of coincidences take him to Russia. There are three people with him on that journey, which turns into a spiritual quest: a Tao master, a Russian publisher and Hilal, a violin virtuoso.Among the writer`s other novels are Brida (1990), By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994), The Fifth Mountain (1996), The Manual of the Warrior of Light (1997), Veronika Decides to Die (1998), The Devil and Miss Prym (2000), Eleven Minutes (2003), The Zahir (2005), The Witch of Portobello (2006) and The Winner Stands Alone (2008).The masters of classical music are appearing simultaneously in world halls and in the istanbul recital series. And may`s guest is the princess of classical music, laure favre-kahn.Laure Favre-Kahn, who gave her first Istanbul recital in 2008, will be at Fulya Concert Hall the evening of Thursday, May 12th. The 1976-born artist received her first training in music at the Avignon Conservatory before entering the Paris Conservatory, where she was awarded a first at the age of seventeen.Recording works by Schumann on her first album at the age of twenty, Favre-Kahn appeared at the Midem Music Festival in Cannes in 1999. The artist, who was unanimously selected the Pro Piano Artist of the Year at the New York Pro Piano Competition in 2001, made her debut at Carnegie Hall the same year. Her most recent album, the Chopin Preludes, appeared this year, the last of four live recordings of concerts she gave at the Rheims Summer Festival
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