Paulo Coelho

This is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, who travels to Tangiers and Egypt where he has a fateful encounter with the Alchemist.

A stranger arrives in a small village carrying a backpack containing eleven gold bars and a notebook. He buries the gold, and strikes up a friendship with Miss Prym. His mission is to find out whether human beings are essentially good or evil, so the village is set a moral challenge from which it may never recover.

Within the city walls of Accra in 1099, men and women of every age have gathered to hear the words of a mysterious man known only as the Copt. He has summoned the townspeople to address their fears with truth, hope and comfort. Now, centuries later, the Copt’s extraordinary insights have been unearthed from a cave in Cairo.

On the legendary road across Spain, travelled by the pilgrims of San Tiago, we find a contemporary traveller on a quest for ancient wisdom.

This is the story of Athena. Her life is pieced together through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all – parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances and her ex-husband. Athena, who has been dubbed 'the Witch of Portobello' for her seeming powers of prophecy, disappears dramatically, leaving those who knew her to solve the mystery of her life and abrupt departure.

One day a war correspondent disappears leaving no trace. Her husband is mystified and wants to understand the reason for her absence. His search for her, and for truth in his own life, takes him through Europe to Central Asia; from the safety of his own world onto an unknown path seeking his destiny.