Paulo Coelho, l’alchimiste des Pyrénées

Paulo Coelho: Der Alchimist der Pyrenäen

City Country Culture

Paulo Coelho, el alquimista de los Pirineos

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Invito al Viaggio: Paulo Coelho, Alchimista dei Pirenei

From its steep peaks to its wild coast, the Pyrenees is a wild land. During a pilgrimage on the way to Compostela, the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho got lost in these mountains. It was then that he entered into a strange pact with the mountain range that he would honour for years to come: he promised if he could write, he would return every year. He then went on to write his best-selling book The Alchemist.

Paulo Coelho, Alchemist of the Pyrenees

Discover the genesis of The Alchemist, the novel by Paulo Coelho.

At once seductive and dangerous, historical myth and male fantasy, the femme fatale represents both erotic promise and a death trap to the male observer. Conceived at the end of the 19th century in the works of Gustave Moreau, Franz von Stuck and Lovis Corinth, the femme fatale was completely reinvented in the 20th century by many female artists.

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Diana, the mythological goddess of the hunt, lives with her band of nymphs in the forest, free of men. Representations of her in painting are a contradictory mix of fantasy and repulsion. These nympths are both virgins and lesbians, naked and threatening, seductive and violent.

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Probably inspired by the Mona Lisa, the great renaissance artist Raphael painted this portrait of a young woman. But why is she holding a mythical beast in her hands?

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Christian philosophy is based on two abstract and complex concepts, but art can simplify them: Paradise, where everything was good and is lost, and Hell, which is so scary that no one wants to go there. And in between there is…us!

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An author once described this work as a portrait of a woman done by a painter who had forgotten to paint the feet, legs, thighs, stomach, hips, chest, hands, arms, shoulders, neck and head. 

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The decisive moment in 1618 that triggered the Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants and changed the course of European history.

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Working her way out of poverty as a sex worker all while supporting her family in Romania. That’s Andrada’s goal. She speaks confidently and openly about her work in a red-light district in Germany’s Ruhr region.  
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The Greek government is under intense pressure to explain how February’s tragic train accident happened. The crash has sparked widespread anti-government protests. We take a broad view of the state of gender equality across Europe and find out about a pioneering law to help menopausal women in Spain.

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Massive protests engulf Greece after a deadly train crash, with the public pointing fingers at the government.

A look at how we are getting better at managing and conserving water supplies in drier parts of our planet like southern Spain, Israel and the desert city of Las Vegas.

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Trumpeter Enrico Rava and pianist Fred Hersh perform from their album, The Song Is You, at the Italian Piacenza jazz festival.

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During the Franco dictatorship and afterwards, around 300,000 babies were stolen from the mothers, sold to childless couples using forged documentation. The Catholic Church is implicated in these terrible crimes.

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City Country CulturePaulo Coelho, Alchemist of the Pyrenees

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