Book Review - The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

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According to the writer Jorge Luis Borges, the meaning of ‘zahir’ comes from Islamic tradition and is thought to have arisen at some point in the eighteenth century. ‘Zahir’ in Arabic means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of hollowness or of madness.

This story is about love, losing and passionate obsession. It is about the famous writer searching for his wife, Esther, a war correspondent who just returned from Iraq. Esther has left him for no apparent reason. The police began their investigation and various theories was put forward such as kidnapping or she left his husband for another man or she was simply bored with the marriage. Before his wife goes missing, the writer and his wife went on a pilgrimage in Santiago. Esther was his backbone as a writer. During the journey to Santiago, Esther helped his husband to discover what he really wants to be, a musician or a writer.

Their life is happy but one day the husband lover Marie came forward with a true alibi. The husband also seek out Mikhail, Esther lover who lives in Kazakhstan. Esther always mention to her husband about Mikhail, saying that he is very important to her life.

Then the writer decided to find her wife and the truth of his own life. He went all around the world from South America to Spain, France, Croatia and eventually arrived at the bleakly beautiful landscape of Central Asia. From one country to other country he started to understand the nature of love and the power of destiny.

Whether he found his wife or not, the reader has to read this book because at the end of the story, the readers are able to feel the various meaning of love and life. A brilliant thought that quotes that meaning is “Things which are important in our life never go away from us. All those things that went away from us are the ones that only we thought were important, but were actually not.”

This book is available at all Taylor’s libraries and the call number is F COE.

About the Author:
Paulo Coelho was born in Brazil and has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Renowned for his best-loved work, The Alchemist, he has sold more than 56 million books worldwide and his work have been translated into 56 languages. The recipient of numerous prestigious international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum and France`s Legion d`Honneur, Paulo Coelho is a writer to inspire nations. He was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of Letter in 2002.

Reviewed by Assistant Librarian, Nur Azura Tajudin