Manual of the Warrior of Light
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| Author | Paulo Coelho |
|---|---|
| Original title | Manual do Guerreiro da Luz |
| Country | Brazil |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Genre | Inspirational Writing |
| Publisher | HarperCollins (eng. trans.) |
Publication date | 1997 |
Published in English | 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Preceded by | The Fifth Mountain |
| Followed by | Veronika Decides to Die |
Manual of the Warrior of Light is a 1997 collection of Paulo Coelho's teachings summed up into one volume. It includes proverbs, extracts from the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, the book of Chuang Tzu, the Talmud and various other sources, and is written in the form of short philosophical passages.
This book is written as if it were an actual handbook for a supposedly Templar or Paladin warrior, the warrior however being a metaphor not for those who serve a certain lord, an ideal or the weak, but for those in pursuit of their dreams and who appreciate the miracle of life. The manual describes the challenges the warrior faces and solutions to the problems, including paradoxes (such as the section "sometimes the Warrior behaves like a rock" is followed directly by "sometimes the Warrior behaves like Water". Rock (stability) and Water (flexibility) are given as opposite metaphors in Taoism).
The book's content was first published in various Brazilian newspapers between 1993 and 1996. It was compiled in 1997, given a prologue and epilogue, and then published under its current title.
As stated in the book's summary, the Manual is for those who strive to meet their destiny and who want to ascend to a higher level of being. The work has also had an influence on popular culture; the song 'Krieger des Lichts' by German rock band Silbermond was written after lead singer Stefanie Kloß had read the book and takes its title from the German-language translation of the book. 'Krieger des Lichts' was released by Silbermond as a single in October 2009 and reached #7 in the German charts.
Editions
Manual of the Warrior of Light has sold its rights to 31 languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese(Complex), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malayalam, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Turkish.
References
External links
- ePub of the book from the author's website