The Alchemist (novel)

The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Believing a
recurring dream to be prophetic, he asks a Romani fortune-teller in a nearby town about its
meaning. The woman interprets the dream as a prophecy telling the boy that he will discover a
treasure at the Egyptian pyramids.

Early into his journey, he meets an old king named Melchizedek or the king of Salem, who tells
him to sell his sheep so as to travel to Egypt and introduces the idea of a Personal Legend. Your
Personal Legend "is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are
young, knows what their Personal Legend is."[3] He adds that "when you want something, all the
universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." This is the core theme of the book.

Along the way, the boy meets an Englishman who has come in search of an Alchemist and
continues his travels with him. When they reach an oasis, Santiago meets and falls in love with
an Arabian girl named Fatima, whom he asks to marry him. She promises to do so only after he
completes his journey. He is frustrated by this, but later learns that true love will not stop nor
must one sacrifice to it one's personal destiny, since to do so robs it of truth.

The boy then encounters a wise alchemist who also teaches him to realize his true self. Finally
they risk a journey through the territory of warring tribes, where the boy is forced to
demonstrate his oneness with "The Soul of the World" by turning himself into a simoom before
he is allowed to proceed. When he begins digging within sight of the pyramids, he is robbed but
learns accidentally from the leader of the thieves that the treasure he seeks was all the time in
the ruined church where he had his original dream.