Reading Exercise 8

Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills.

In the Arab world, people lack life skills because of the collective nature of the family. The fatherly figures do all relevant tasks and take all decisions. This makes the young generation lack life skills as they are never put in important situations. Many Arab students lack all these skills because of the idea of teaching to the test and the disregard of the notion of preparing students for life. Parents also believe that life skills are common sense and once their children grow up and are put in relevant situation they will know what to do. 

The UNICEF Evaluation Office suggests that "there is no definitive list" of psychosocial skills; nevertheless UNICEF enumerates psychosocial and interpersonal skills that are generally well-being oriented, and essential alongside literacy and numeracy skills. Since it changes its meaning from culture to culture and life positions, it is considered a concept that is elastic in nature. But UNICEF acknowledges social and emotional life skills identified by Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL).  Life skills are a product of synthesis: many skills are developed simultaneously through practice, like humor, which allows a person to feel in control of a situation and make it more manageable in perspective. It allows the person to release fears, anger, and stress and achieve a qualitative life.

For example, decision-making often involves critical thinking ("what are my options?") and values clarification ("what is important to me?"), ("How do I feel about this?"). Ultimately, the interplay between the skills is what produces powerful behavioral outcomes, especially where this approach is supported by other strategies.

The World Health Organization in 1999 identified the following core cross-cultural areas of life skills:

decision-making and problem-solving,

creative thinking  and critical thinking,

communication and interpersonal skills,

self-awareness and empathy,

assertiveness and equanimity; and

resilience and coping with emotions and coping with stress.

UNICEF listed similar skills and related categories in its 2012 report. In the US, life skills curricula designed for K-12 often emphasize communications and practical skills needed for successful independent living as well as for developmental-disabilities/special-education students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP).

Many life skills programs are offered when traditional family structures and healthy relationships have broken down, whether due to parental lapses, divorce, psychological disorders or due to issues with the children (such as substance abuse or other risky behavior). For example, the International Labour Organization is teaching life skills to ex-child laborers and at-risk children in Indonesia to help them avoid and to recover from worst forms of child abuse. Such courses are not available in the Arab world. Even those Human Resource programs are considered "common sense" and many of those who enroll either drop out or give the feedback that it is "common sense".

References:

Andrew J. DuBrin (2016). Human Relations for Career and Personal Success: Concepts, Applications, and Skills. Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0-13-413171-9.

 "Life Skills Education for Children and Adolescents in Schools" World Health Organization

 November 2018. 

 "Global evaluation of life skills education programmes" (PDF). www.unicef.org (Evaluation Report). New York: United Nations Children’s Fund. August 2012. p. 8-9. Retrieved 21 November 2018.

Reaching Your Potential: Personal and Professional Development, 4th Edition.

Questions for Discussion: 

" People in the Arab world lack life skills". |Do you agree with the statement? Explain.
Would you enroll in courses for life skills? Why?

Reading Exercise 7

         Films sometimes lead to controversy. In the Arab World, politics and religion are topics that lead to debate especially if they are discussed in films.  Religious topics infuriate peoples in the Arab world. One of the films that lead to long debate before and after its showing is The Emigrant (Al Mohager), a 1994 Egyptian film by Youssef Chahine.

          The release of this film, which is loosely based on the story of the Biblical Joseph, raised a storm of protest, since Islam forbids the visual representation of religious figures. Chahine changed the names of all of the characters and stripped the story of all its supernatural and miraculous elements to evade such protest. Joseph becomes Ram, Jacob becomes Adam, Potiphar becomes Amihar, and Potiphar's wife, unnamed in the Bible, becomes Simihit, the high priestess of the Cult of Amun. Chahine emphasizes all through the film that Joseph does not advance because of a miraculous ability to receive and interpret dreams, but because of his personal merits.

        

         After achieving all necessary approvals from the censorship authorities, the film ran successfully in Egyptian cinema until a lawsuit initiated by a fundamentalist Islamist lawyer caused a temporary ban. After a year-long court battle, Chahine won the case, only to face a second ban resulting from a lawsuit initiated by a Christian lawyer who objected to the movie's many deviations from the Biblical account.

             The film runs 128 minutes, features a symphonic score by Mohamed Nouh, and mixes set and location shots, with a few special effects by Excalibur. Ramses Marzouk did the camera work, Rachida Abdel-Salam acted as film editor, Hamed Hemdan provided art direction, Nahed Nasrallah handled costume design, Dominique Hennequin handled sound, Walid Aouni performed choreography, and Ahmed Kassem acted as assistant director.

             In this film, young Ram is a thinker who has grown up in a primitive and superstitious society, hated by his brothers and suspected of sorcery. Dissatisfied with the nomadic lifestyle of his family, he dreams of traveling to Egypt to study agriculture. Forewarned by his weather knowledge, he saves the family's flocks from a destructive sandstorm, and manages to persuade his father to let him leave for Egypt. His older brothers travel with him, but at the shipping dock they tie him up, knock him out, and dump him into the hold of a boat traveling to Egypt. When he wakes up, he is discovered by the boat owner family, who intend to sell him as a slave. They let Ram know that this sale would be his opportunity to enter the service of a powerful family, since the man they wish to sell him to, Ozir, is assistant to Amihar, the military head of Thebes. Ram actively participates in the bargaining to get the best possible price for his purchase. His initial months as a slave are a disappointment, however, since he is assigned to assist in the mummification of bodies rather than learning about agriculture. Ram is not afraid to express his contempt for the Egyptian obsession with death and the preservation of one's mortal remains, and affirms his belief in one God and the immortality of the soul independent of one's body. Amihar is impressed by Ram's honesty, takes a personal liking to the young man, and gives Ram a chance to convert a barren stretch of land into a working farm. Through a combination of hard work, good mentoring, and a bit of luck, Ram is successful in this endeavor.

                  Unfortunately, Ram becomes caught up in an intertwined mesh of sexual, political, and religious intrigues. Ram's relationship with Simihit and Amihar is far more complex than in the Biblical version of the story. Amihar is a eunuch, a former harem guard. His marriage to Simihit, former princess of a vanquished nation, was at first simply a political maneuver, but he later came to care deeply for her. Ram catches the eye of Simihit. As in the Bible, when Simihit is caught after making advances towards Ram, she tries to cover her tracks by accusing Ram of attempted rape.  Amihar does not necessarily believe her. He asks Ram what happened, but Ram steadfastly defends Simihit's honor, leaving Amihar no choice but to have him thrown into prison. Simihit is deeply affected by Ram's willingness to accept prison rather than reveal her attempted infidelity and relents of her accusation, confessing the truth. After Ram's release, he becomes involved in a power struggle between the wealthy followers of Amun, chief of the traditional Egyptian pantheon, versus the oppressed followers of Aten, god of the monotheistic Atenist heresy. Although Simihit is a priestess of Amun, she is a secret convert to the Cult of Aten. Throughout these troubles, Ram is fiercely loyal to both Simihit and Amihar, and his loyalty is rewarded by his release from slavery. Over the subsequent years, he rises in stature, takes an Egyptian wife, and becomes a trusted adviser to Pharaoh. Severe famine strikes, and Joseph's brothers turn up asking for food. Ram toys with his brothers before revealing his identity, and they become reconciled. The movie ends with Ram and his family traveling back to his homeland and becoming reunited with his father.

                  

               Open-minded practicing Muslims liked the movie as they believe that art is a soul builder. Some Muslims and some Christians disliked the movie as it is not a thorough adaptation of the religious story or utter new version. They also disliked the idea of the philosophical shades Chahine added up to the story as they believe religion and religious stories should be followed thoroughly and should be taken for granted rather than thought about.

References:

 "Founding father of Egyptian cinema". The Australian. 30 July 2008. Retrieved 23 October 2018.

 Elley, Derek (20 November 1994). "The Emigrant". Variety. Archived from the original on 12 November 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2018.

 Page, Matt. "Al-Mohager (The Emigrant)". Retrieved 12 October 2018.

 "FILM: Egypt - Banned: Al-Mohager (The Emigrant)". dOCUMENTA (13). Archived from the original on 6 March 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2018.

Questions for discussion:

Movies should not discuss religious subjects.

People should think about religious dogma.  

Reading Exercise 6

Hoda Shaarawy

Hoda Shaarawy (1879 –1947) was a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union.

Hoda was born in Upper Egypt to the famous Egyptian El-Shaarwi family. Hoda Shaarawy was born into a wealthy family in Minya, she was the daughter of Muhammad Sultan, the first president of the Egyptian Representative Council. She spent her childhood and early adulthood secluded in an upper-class Egyptian harem. At the age of thirteen, she was married to her cousin Ali Pasha Sha‘rawi. According to Margaret Badran, a "subsequent separation from her husband gave her time for an extended formal education, as well as an unexpected taste of independence." She was taught to read the Quran and received tutoring in Quranic Arabic and Islamic subjects by female teachers in Cairo. Shaarawy wrote poetry in both Arabic and French. She later recounted her early life in her memoir, Mudhakkirātī ("My Memoir") which was translated and abridged into the English version Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879-1924.

At the time, women in Egypt were confined to the house or harem which she viewed as a very backward system brought by the Ottomans to MENA region. As seen in all of her pictures, Hoda is wearing a Hijab. Shaarawy resented such restrictions on women's movements, and consequently started organizing lectures for women on topics of interest to them. This brought many women out of their homes and into public places for the first time. Shaarawy even convinced them to help her establish a women's welfare society to raise money for the poor women of Egypt. In 1910, Shaarawy opened a school for girls where she focused on teaching academic subjects rather than practical skills such as midwifery.

After World War I, many women took part in political actions against the British rule. In 1919, Shaarawy helped organize the largest women's anti-British demonstration. In defiance of British authority orders to disperse, the women remained still for three hours in the hot sun. Shaarawy made a decision to stop wearing her veil in public after her husband's death in 1922. Within a decade of Hoda’s act of defiance, few women still chose to wear the veil. Her decision to unveil was part of a greater movement of women, and was influenced by French born Egyptian feminist named Eugénie Le Brun, but it contrasted with some feminist thinkers like Malak Hifni Nasif. After returning from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance Congress in Rome, she removed her face veil in public for the first time, a signal event in the history of Egyptian feminism. Women who came to greet her were shocked at first then broke into applause and some of them removed their veils. In 1923, Shaarawy founded and became the first president of the Egyptian Feminist Union.

Even as a young woman, she showed her independence by entering a department store in Alexandria to buy her own clothes instead of having them brought to her home. She helped to organize Mubarrat Muhammad Ali, a women's social service organization, in 1909 and the Union of Educated Egyptian Women in 1914, the year in which she traveled to Europe for the first time. She helped lead the first women's street demonstration during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, and was elected president of the Wafdist Women's Central Committee.

She led Egyptian women pickets at the opening of Parliament in January 1924 and submitted a list of nationalist and feminist demands, which were ignored by the Wafdist government, whereupon she resigned from the Wafdist Women's Central Committee. She continued to lead the Egyptian Feminist Union until her death, publishing the feminist magazine l'Egyptienne (El-Masreyya), and representing Egypt at women's congresses in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Marseilles, Istanbul, Brussels, Budapest, Copenhagen, Interlaken, and Geneva. She advocated peace and disarmament. Even if only some of her demands were met during her lifetime, she laid the groundwork for later gains by Egyptian women and remains the symbolic standard-bearer for their liberation movement. She began to hold regular meetings for women at her home, and from this, the Egyptian Feminist Union was born. She launched a fortnightly journal, L'Égyptienne in 1925, in order to publicise the cause.

Hoda Shaarawy was involved in philanthropic projects throughout her life. In 1909, she created the first philanthropic society run by Egyptian women (Mabarrat Muhammad 'Ali), offering social services for poor women and children. She argued that women-run social service projects were important for two reasons. First, by engaging in such projects, women would widen their horizons, acquire practical knowledge and direct their focus outward. Second, such projects would challenge the view that all women are creatures of pleasure and beings in need of protection. To Shaarawy, problems of the poor were to be resolved through charitable activities of the rich, particularly through donations to education programs. Holding a somewhat romanticized view of poor women's lives, she viewed them as passive recipients of social services, not to be consulted about priorities or goals. The rich, in turn, were the "guardians and protectors of the nation."

Shaarwy is becoming a controversial figure. She is losing ground because of the social media. Facebook posts denote that she did not really support women. Critical thinking and controversy is useful as it leads many to discuss the idea of women's rights.

References

 Zénié-Ziegler, Wédad (1988), In Search of Shadows: Conversations with Egyptian Women, Zed Books, p. 112, ISBN 0862328071, The Federation of Egyptian Women was founded by a middle-class woman of Turkish origin, Huda Shaarawi. In 1923, she and two of her fellow activists, Cesa Nabarawi and Nabawiya Moussa, also of Turkish origin...

 Shaarawi, Huda Post Colonial Studies. Retrieved 6 October 2014.

 Shaarawi, Huda. Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist. Translated and introduced by 

Margot Badran. New York: The Feminist Press, 1987.

 Shaʻrāwī, Hudá, and Margot Badran. Harem years: the memoirs of an Egyptian feminist (1879-1924). New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1987.

 Huda Shaarawi, Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879-1924), ed. and trans. by Margot Badran (London: Virago, 1986(

 Hudá Shaʻrāwī (January 1987). Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879-1924). Feminist Press at CUNY. 

 Khaldi, Boutheina (2008). Arab Women Going Public: Mayy Ziyadah and her Literary Salon in a Comparative Context (Thesis). Indiana University. OCLC 471814336., p. 40; Zeidan, Joseph T. (1995). Arab Women Novelists: The Formative Years and Beyond. SUNY series in Middle Eastern Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-2172-4, p. 34.

 Casting off the Veil: The Life of Huda Shaarawi, Egypt's First Feminist (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012).

 Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 50.

Questions for Discussion:

In your opinion, are Egyptian women still segregated? Why?

"Religion give women their rights and society deprives them". Comment.

Reading Exercise 5

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance in which loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development" by helping the poor. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. In 2008, he was rated number 2 in Foreign Policy magazine's list of the 'Top 100 Global Thinkers'. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. In March 2011, the Bangladesh government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank, citing legal violations and an age limit on his position.

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Yunus was named by Fortune Magazine in March 2012 as one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of the current era. In its citation, Fortune Magazine said "Yunus' idea inspired countless numbers of young people to devote themselves to social causes all over the world."

Sources:

"The role of Muhammad Yunus in the Bangladesh Liberation War and thereafter :: Financial Express: Financial Newspaper of Bangladesh". thefinancialexpress-bd.com. Retrieved 8 October 2018.

 "Yunus on Congressional medal - bdnews24.com". bdnews24.com. Retrieved 8 October  2018.

 "Hasina vs Yunus". Archived from the original on 2011-03-05. Retrieved 9 October 2018.

 "Yunus names his political party Nagorik Shakti - bdnews24.com". bdnews24.com. Retrieved 9 October 2018.

 "The New York Times". nytimes.com. Retrieved 9 October 2018.

 Bari, R. (2011). Grameen Social Business Model: A Manifesto for Proletariat Revolution. AuthorHouse. p. 158. ISBN 9781468565652. Retrieved 9 October 2018.

 "It is NOT Moeen, Stupid! | In the Middle of Nowhere". rumiahmed.wordpress.com. Retrieved 10 October 2018.

 "Grameen's Muhammad Yunus in court for defamation case – BBC News". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2018.

"The Micro Debt (2011) – IMDb". imdb.com. Retrieved 8 October 2018.

 "Caught in Micro debt – Dr. Yunus siphoned TK 7bn for poor | BANGLADESH – Audacity of Hope". mygoldenbengal.wordpress.com. Retrieved 8 October 2018.

Questions for Discussion:

Do you think micocredict can make a difference in Egyptian economy? Why?

How can the government support the poor in starting and keeping small business?

Reading Exercise 4

"Jews of Egypt‎" is an Egyptian documentary film produced by Haitham Al-Khamissi and directed by Amir Ramses. The film is also co-written and researched by Mostafa Youssef. It documents the history of the Jewish people in Egypt.

The film covers the Jewish involvement in Egyptian business and arts in the first half of the 20th Century. It then mentions the founding of Israel in 1948, the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and the Suez Crisis in 1956. Due to the crisis, the Jews of Egypt were forced into exile. People giving testimonials in the film include exiled Egyptian Jews, most of whom lived in Paris; Mohamed Abu El-Ghar, the author of Jews of Egypt: From Prosperity to Diaspora; a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who had participated in an attack of Jewish shops in Egypt in 1947; and Essam Fawzi, a sociologist.

Director Amir Ramses said that he had considered making the film for several years. Ramses and producer Haitham Al-Khamissi self-funded the film, believing that relying on a sponsor, whether the sponsor was Arab or not, would hamper the neutrality of the film. Ramses took a six month trip to prepare for making the film. Ramses began conducting research in late 2008. Research consisted of locating and interviewing Jews within Egypt, building a "historical skeleton," and then obtaining print media, videos, and other archival material. The film shooting began in 2009. The 2011 Egyptian revolution caused work on the film to be suspended. Work was then resumed and the film was completed in September 2018.

The avant-première occurred in October 2012 during the Panorama of the European Film. Amir Ramses said that the premiere took place in a "blatantly intellectual context." It was screened at the northern hemisphere winter 2012 Arab Camera Festival in Rotterdam and the January 2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The film was scheduled for screening in theatres in Cairo on the first week of March 2013 . On Wednesday March 13, 2013, producer Haitham El-Khameesy said that the Censorship Bureau officials did not issue a permit for a release of his film in Egyptian cinemas and that they requested to view the film before they could allow its screening. Reuters said that security source told them that the permit had been granted and that it had not prevented its screening.The film's Egyptian cinema screening was ultimately scheduled for 27 March 2013.

After the Egyptian government canceled the screening of the film, Khaled Diab, an Egyptian-Belgian blogger, journalist, and writer, produced an opinion piece in Haaretz in which he argued that "This damages the push-back against strong anti-Jewish sentiment gripping the country, while failing to remind Egyptians of a past era of diversity and tolerance." Ada Aharoni, the editor of "The Golden Age of the Jews From Egypt," said "This film claimed Jews had it good in Egypt and left only to America and France, not Israel — and still it was banned."

Questions for discussion:
Do you ever watch documentaries? Why?
Are you with the idea of censorship? Why?

References

Al-Ahram Weekly. Monday 25 February 2013. Retrieved on 29 September 2018.

Beach, Alastair. "Exodus: Fall of the Jews in Egypt." The Independent.  4 April 3013. Retrieved on 2 October 2018.

 Elkamel, Sara. "'Jews of Egypt' tells story of Egypt's exiled Jewish community." (Archived 2013-04-09 at WebCite) 

Reading Exercise 3

The Alchemist (novel)

The Alchemist (Portuguese: O Alquimista) is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho that was first published in 1988. Originally written in Portuguese, it became an international bestseller translated into some 70 languages as of 2016. An allegorical novel, The Alchemist follows a young Andalusian shepherd in his journey to the pyramids of Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding a treasure there.Over the years there have been film and theatrical adaptations of the work and musical interpretations of it.

The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, he asks a Romani fortune teller in a nearby town about its meaning. The woman interprets the dream as a prophecy telling the boy that he will discover a treasure at the Egyptian pyramids.

Early into his journey, he meets an old king named Melchizedek or the king of Salem, who tells him to sell his sheep so as to travel to Egypt and introduces the idea of a Personal Legend. Your Personal Legend "is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is." (The Alchemist 21)

Early in his arrival to Africa a man who claims to be able to take Santiago to the pyramids instead robs him of what money he had made from selling his sheep. Santiago then embarks on a long path of working for a crystal merchant so as to make enough money to fulfil his personal legend and go to the pyramids.

Along the way, the boy meets an Englishman who has come in search of an alchemist and continues his travels in his new companion's company. When they reach an oasis, Santiago meets and falls in love with an Arabian girl named Fatima, to whom he proposes marriage. She promises to do so only after he completes his journey. Frustrated at first, he later learns that true love will not stop nor must one sacrifice to it one's personal destiny, since to do so robs it of truth.

The boy then encounters a wise alchemist who also teaches him to realize his true self. Together they risk a journey through the territory of warring tribes, where the boy is forced to demonstrate his oneness with "the soul of the world" by turning himself into a simoom before he is allowed to proceed. When he begins digging within sight of the pyramids, he is robbed yet again but learns accidentally from the leader of the thieves that the treasure he seeks was all the time in the ruined church where he had his original dream.

Coelho wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks in 1987. He explained that he was able to write at this pace because the story was "already written in [his] soul." The book's main theme is supposed to be about finding one's destiny, although according to The New York Times, The Alchemist is "more self-help than literature". The advice given Santiago that "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true" is the core of the novel's philosophy and a motif that plays throughout it.

The Alchemist was first released by an obscure Brazilian publishing house. Albeit having sold "well", the publisher after a year decided to give Coelho back the rights.  Needing to "heal" himself from this setback, Coelho set out to leave Rio de Janeiro with his wife and spent 40 days in the Mojave Desert. Returning from the excursion, Coelho decided he had to keep on struggling and was "so convinced it was a great book that [he] started knocking on doors".

Coelho said he has been reluctant to sell rights to his books. He believed that a book has a "life of its own inside the reader's mind", and seldom did he find an adaptation that lived up to the book. Despite this, with time, Coelho decided to open up the possibility. In 2003, Warner Bros. bought the rights to the film adaptation of The Alchemist. The project stalled and the movie never materialized, reportedly because of problems with the script. At one point, the script had a battle sequence with 10,000 soldiers, which was "not what the book is about." Reportedly, Coelho offered US$2 million to Warner Bros. to buy back the film rights to The Alchemist.

During the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Harvey Weinstein announced that he had bought the rights to the film and would serve as its producer. Laurence Fishburne is set to direct, and to play the eponymous character. It will have a reported budget of $60 million. Weinstein, who rarely personally produced movies, stated that "My loyalty is not to Laurence [Fishburne], my loyalty is not to me, my loyalty is not to anyone other than Paulo Coelho." Coelho added, "I am very happy that my book will be filmed in the way I intended it to be and I hope the spirit and simplicity of my work will be preserved. I am excited my friend Laurence Fishburne and Harvey Weinstein will be working together." In June 2015, it was reported that Idris Elba was set to play the protagonist and that Fishburne would direct the movie instead.

HarperOne, a HarperCollins imprint, produced an illustrated version of the novel, with paintings by the French artist Mœbius, but failed to convince Coelho "to consent to the full graphic-novel treatment." In June 2010, HarperOne announced that it would publish a graphic-novel adaptation. The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel was published in 2010, adapted by Derek Ruiz and with artwork by Daniel Sampere.

A theatrical adaptation of The Alchemist was produced and performed by the Cornish Collective, which is their most successful production to date. It was staged for the first time in India by Ashvin Gidwani Productions. Kajol and Karan Johar launched this book's theatrical adaptation in India. In music, The Alchemist has inspired numerous bands of the same name.

References

 "Paulo Coelho in WorldCat database". WorldCat. Retrieved 17 September 2018.

 "The Alchemist > Editions". Goodreads. Retrieved 17 September  2018.

  Pool, Hannah (2009-03-19). "Question time". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 September  2018.

 Cowles, Gregory (2009-10-08). "Inside the List". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 September  2018. 

 Flanagan, Mark. "The Alchemist".

 "Interview with Paulo Coelho". Goodreads.com. March 2008. Retrieved 1September  2018.

 Fishburne to direct The Alchemist The Guardian. June 27, 2007.

 Doland, Angela 'The Alchemist' to be made into movie USA Today. May 18, 2008.

 "Paulo Coelho". The Guardian. 2008-07-22. Retrieved  17 September  2018.

 Weinstein to produce 'Alchemist' film adaptation Muzi.com News. May 18, 2008.

 The Weinstein Company to Bring 'The Alchemist' to the Big Screen Archived November 8, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. Zoom In Online: Film & TV.

 "Idris Elba set for Laurence Fishburne's film of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist". The Guardian. 2015-06-05. Retrieved 7 September  2018..

 Itzkoff, David (2010-07-06). "Graphic Novel of 'The Alchemist': Words Into Pictures". The New York Times. Retrieved  7 September  2018.

 The Cornish Theatre Collective Archived August 22, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. The Alchemist.

 "How The Alchemist came alive on theatre". rediff.com. Retrieved 17 September  2018..

 "The week gone by... (11 Images)". Movies.ndtv.com. Retrieved 17 September  2018.

 "Kajol and Karan at the launch of The Alchemist". Nowrunning.com. 2008-07-14. Retrieved  17 September  2018.

The Alchemist, HarperCollins, 1998.

 Walter Taieb (February 1, 2017). "The Alchemist's Symphony". Retrieved December 12, 2017 – via YouTube.

 Schweitzer, Vivien (2009-09-15). "Inspiration From Bjork, 'The Alchemist' and the Sea". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 September  2018.

Questions to discuss:

Everyone in the world is an "Alchemist". Comment.

Stories lose their value when adapted to the cinema.