The Zahir

July 11, 2005
The press chat cites 65 million copies of Coelho's eight previous novels in print, making the Brazilian author one of the world's bestselling novelists (150 countries and 56 languages). This book, whose title means "the present" or "unable to go unnoticed" in Arabic, has an initial staggered laydown of eight million copies in 83 countries and 42 languages. It centers on the narrator's search for his missing wife, Esther, a journalist who fled Iraq in the runup to the present war, only to disappear from Paris; the narrator, a writer, is freed from suspicion when his lover, Marie, comes forward with a (true) alibi. He seeks out Mikhail, the man who may be Esther's most recent lover and with whom she was last seen, who has abandoned his native Kazakhstan for a kind of speaking tour on love. Mikhail introduces the narrator to a global underground "tribe" of spiritual seekers who resist, somewhat vaguely, conventional ways of living. Through the narrator's journey from Paris to Kazakhstan, Coelho explores various meanings of love and life, but the impact of these lessons is diminished significantly as they are repeated in various forms by various characters. Then again, 65 million readers can't be wrong; the spare, propulsive style that drove The Alchemist
, Eleven Minutes
and Coelho's other books will easily carry fans through myriad iterations of the ways and means of amor
.

August 15, 2005
Finding himself in the grips of "the Zahir," a Middle Eastern expression for an all-encompassing obsession, the narrator, a successful novelist, reexamines his life and marriage in an effort to break the bonds of his fixation. His wife, Esther, a war correspondent, has disappeared, last seen with a younger man in a café , and the narrator's search for her leads him on an expansive physical and spiritual quest. From Paris to Kazakhstan, the novelist encounters a number of cultures and subcultures with varying views of and preconceptions about love and the achievement of ultimate happiness. Brazilian author Coelho, known for such best-selling inspirational fables as "The Alchemist", has written an enlightening story of faith and the reclamation of pure love. Personal elements incorporating his own experiences as an author and his pilgrimages to various exotic locations lend the novel a highly autobiographical feel. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/15/05.] -Joy St. John, Henderson Dist. P.L., NV

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2005
Subtitled " A Novel of Obsession, " this tale is the philosophical and spiritual chronicle of one man's quest for self-discovery. Stunned by his wife's inexplicable disappearance from their Paris home and immediately suspected of foul play by the authorities and the press, the unnamed protagonist, a best-selling writer, is forced to reexamine both his marital relationship and his own life. What he eventually discovers with the help of a -mysterious stranger named Mikhail--a man he suspects is somehow involved in Esther's disappearance--is that he must first "find himself" before he can ever hope to find his wife. Although Esther is physically and emotionally lost to him, he rediscovers her\b \b0 as he retraces both her footsteps and the disintegration of their visceral connection. Finally able to release the past and his anger, he can accept the uncertainty of the present by traveling to Kazakhstan with Mikhail in search of Esther and the remote possibility of resurrecting a dormant love. As in " The Alchemist" (1993), Coelho continues to prove himself a contemporary fabulist, spinning irresistible stories while seeking enlightenment at the same time. Interwoven with details drawn from his life, the mesmerizing narrative offers a highly personal meditation on the meaning and the power of love. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)