The Alchemist is an effortless and straightforward story based on the life of an Andalusian guy named Santiago. He is a shepherd who is day long engaged in and around his sheep. He persistently gets a dream about a treasure kept for him at the Pyramids of Egypt. He believes in the dream as diligently as if some prediction has been made to him. He approaches a vagabond, regarding the same for a piece of advice. The vagabond makes him believe that the dream indeed is true and insists on him to go to Egypt. Santiago embarks on his journey searching for the treasure, oblivious of the situations and experiences to be thrown at him by life. Initially, he meets an old man who pretends to be a king. He advises Santiago to continuously seek for premonitions and see them as signals from the Universe.

Santiago’s expedition takes him from his native place Spain to the streets of Tangiers and further to the desserts of Egypt. He comes in contact with various people having different backgrounds, who teach him the lessons of belief, peril, adversity, prospects and love. He meets an alchemist (fortune-teller) as he was fated to meet and acquires much knowledge from him.

At first, the teachings of the alchemist created self-doubt in Santiago but gradually the alchemist succeed in instilling self-faith in Santiago. They give constant confidence to him further strengthening his goal of reaching the pyramids to find the treasure.

Alchemist was initially published in Portuguese language in the year 1988. It became an international best seller although at a sluggish pace. More than 65 million copies of this book have been sold and it has been translated into around 71 languages till the year 2011.