When the world fails to end in the year 2000, perhaps what will end is this fascination with the work of Paulo Coelho.

Wilson Martins, literary critic, April 1998, O Globo

Brazil is Rui Barbosa, it’s Euclides da Cunha, but it’s also Paulo Coelho. I’m not a reader of his books, nor am I an admirer, but he has to be accepted as a fact of contemporary Brazilian life.

Martins again, July 2005, O Globo