“Ukraine crisis [is] a convenient excuse for Russophobia”, tweeted Paulo Coelho a few days ago. In the light of recent events, this statement hurt many Ukrainians and provoked a wave of reprehension towards his persona.
Paulo Coelho is a well-acclaimed Brazilian writer and poet, whose books such as “The Alchemist” were often required readings in schools. He was awarded, i.e., the Bambi Award, the Order of the Arts and Letters and the Rio Branco Order. He has a huge audience (15.4M followers on Twitter), which withered a bit after his comment about the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“I’ve been to Lvov, Kyiv, Odessa, Yalta, Chernobyl (Ukraine) I’ve crossed 10.000 km by train, Moscow to Vladivostok (Russia) Yes, there is a war: but don’t blame the common people,” he continued. However, Internet users were unimpressed with such a take. “You’ve been to 4 Ukrainian cities and misspelt 3 of them: it’s Lviv, Odesa and Chornobyl. Sign of a good writer.”, comments Vik Vatamaniuk in response. Some replies were also showing examples of common people who do support the war.
In response to Coelho’s behaviour Polish online store BookSale.pl decided to stop selling his books and refrain from adding them to future sales. In an official Facebook statement, the sellers ask their clients to inform them if any of Coelho’s works were left on the website.