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a Formula 1 champion, so get in your Ferrari and drive!’
    The remark soothes him. He laughs and agrees that not only did he make that choice but he fought his whole life to become what he is now, and so has no right to complain. ‘But I still can’t take on the whole programme. Some of the events are too close together and on three different continents!’
    Usually, the stress of travel is caused not by the engagements themselves, but by the misery of modern air travel, especially since 9/11, when the consequent increase in vigilance and bureaucracy has created even longer delays for passengers. He faces the same queues, delays and overbookings as his millions of readers, and one of the problems with the programme suggested by Sant Jordi is that it will have to be undertaken entirely on commercial flights. Coelho prints out the list and, penin hand, starts by cutting out any engagements that entail intercontinental flights, which means putting off Latin America, Japan and South Korea, and the birthday party in Kazakhstan. Syria and Lebanon also go, but Egypt remains. Warsaw is replaced by Prague, where he wants to fulfil a promise made twenty years earlier. Finally, he decides that his first stop, in the Czech Republic, will be followed by Hamburg, where he will receive his prize and from where he will fly on to Cairo. However, the problem, once again, is flights. There are no connections that will allow him to stick to the timetables for Germany and Egypt. The Germans refuse to change the programme, which has already been printed and distributed, but they suggest an alternative: the private plane of Klaus Bauer, president of the media giant Bauer Verlagsgruppe, which sponsors the Goldene Feder prize, will take him and those in his party from Hamburg to Cairo as soon as the ceremony is over.
    Hours later, when the programme has been agreed by all concerned, he telephones Mônica and jokes: ‘Since we’re going to Prague, what about putting on a “blitzkrieg” there?’
    ‘Blitzkrieg’ is the name Coelho gives to book signings that take place unannounced and with no previous publicity. He simply walks into a bookshop chosen at random, greets those present with ‘Hi, I’m Paulo Coelho’ and offers to sign copies of his books for anyone who wants him to. Some people say that these blitzkriegs are basically a form of exhibitionism, and that the author loves to put them on for the benefit of journalists. This certainly appeared to be the case when the reporter Dana Goodyear was travelling with him in Italy, where a blitzkrieg in Milan bore all the marks of having been deliberately staged for her benefit. In Prague, in fact, he is suggesting a middle way: to tell the publisher only the night before so that while there is no time for interviews, discussions or chat shows to be set up, there is time to make sure, at least, that there are enough books for everyone should the bookshop be crowded.
    However, the objective of this trip to the Czech Republic has nothing to do with selling books. When he set out on the road back to Catholicism in 1982, after a period in which he had entirely rejected the faith and become involved in Satanic sects, Coelho was in Prague with Christina during a long hippie-style trip across Europe. They visited the church ofOur Lady Victorious in order to make a promise to the Infant Jesus of Prague. For some inexplicable reason, Brazilian Christians have always shown a particular devotion to this image of the child, which has been in Prague since the seventeenth century. The extent of this devotion can be judged by the enormous number of notices that have been published over the years in newspapers throughout Brazil, containing a simple sentence, followed by the initial of the individual: ‘To the Infant Jesus of Prague, for the grace received. D.’ Like millions of his compatriots, Coelho also came to make a request, and by no means a small one. He knelt at the small side altar where the image