She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip to Nepal, aboard the Magic Bus that travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. His travels take him further, to the famous square in Amsterdam, where Paulo meets Karla. He sets off on a journey in search of freedom and a deeper meaning for his life: first, with a girlfriend, on the famous 'Death Train to Bolivia,' then on to Peru and later hitchhiking through Chile and Argentina. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.Īt this time, Paulo is a young, skinny Brazilian with a goatee and long, flowing hair who wants to become a writer. In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music, and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth.

In Hippie, Paulo Coelho takes us back in time to re-live the dream of a generation that longed for peace and dared to challenge the established social order-authoritarian politics, conservative modes of behavior, excessive consumerism, and an unbalanced concentration of wealth and power.įollowing the 'three days of peace and music' at Woodstock, the 1969 gathering in Bethel, New York that would change the world forever, hippie paradises began to emerge all around the world. In his most autobiographical novel to date, Paulo Coelho interweaves adventure, philosophy, and the true stories of his own life to give readers an essential book for our time. In Hippie, he tells the story of a young Brazilian man, Paulo, and Karla, a Dutch woman in her twenties, who share a journey of self-discovery aboard the Magic Bus, as it travels from Amsterdam to Kathmandu in 1970. Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, best-selling author Paulo Coelho takes us back in time to re-live the dreams of a generation that longed for peace and dared to challenge the established social order.

Hippie paulo coelho book review