Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho (2013)

I had to read some reviews to get the right perspective on this one. I was surprised that it was termed a "novel" as it is supposed to be a translation of some old texts found in Accra. I thought it actually was some ancient text that Coelho had found through a scholar friend, as stated in the "introduction." Then I thought he had translated the text to Portugese and now we have it in English. It felt like Kahil Gibran's Prophet, which I was very fond of in high school and maybe college. People were asking questions of a Greek wise man, called a Copt, and he was expounding on love, beauty, war, sex, etc. I was actually in a space where I wanted to hear things like this, but then slowly realized the concepts were way too modern. I recognized pieces from the Bible, but as the review from the Boston Globe pointed out, he quoted many ancient and contemporary wisdoms. So it really was fiction - or Coelho's wisdom put in a fictional setting. But I don't really care. As I said, I needed to hear some of these things at this stage in my life.