Paulo Coelho de Souza, born August 24, 1947, is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist. He is the recipient of numerous international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. The Alchemist, his most famous novel, has been translated into 80 languages. The author has sold 210 million copies worldwide (as for June 2015) and is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author.

In November 2014, Paulo Coelho finished uploading around 80,000 documents-manuscripts, diaries, photos, reader letters, press clippings-and created a virtual Paulo Coelho Foundation.