'By the River Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river-leaves, insects, the feathers of birds- is transformed in to the rocks that made riverbeds.' – Paulo Coelho(In the book, By the river Piedra, I sat down and wept.)

Once I finished reading the novel 'The Alchemist,' I was very much inspired by the free verse style of Paulo and thought of reading one more work of Paulo Coelho. The book with the lengthy title, 'By the River Piedra I sat down and wept,' caught in to my eye as I wandered through the library.

In this novel, the author clearly portrayed the feelings of innocent young girl of her struggle between friendship and love. Pilar, a young woman was a main character in this story. Her age was not exactly mentioned in the story but we can assume as she was in her late teenage or early twenties as she was a college student. Pilar met her childhood friend after ten years, whose name was not noted in the novel.

Together take a journey for six days. The story starts on Saturday, December 4, 1993. Pilar started her journey to search for the meaning of life, but later realized she was on her journey of life. Pilar was told by her old friend about his various experiences he had passed in his life. Pilar was amazed by the miracle-doing power her boyfriend had. In the later part, her boyfriend told his love on her. At first, it seemed she was not interested, but after they reached the River Piedra, Pilar got answer to many of her questions and she decides to travel with him forever.

Paulo wrote this whole book sentimentally and with some little humor. Many chapters of this book were written in free verse style. When Pilar realized she had fallen in love, she expressed her emotions fantastically as, 'I opened the window and my heart. The sun flooded the room and love inundated my soul.'

After finished reading, I was not amazed why this has been translated in to fifty-six languages. The unique- distinctive style of Paulo Coelho was the main reason for this success, and I believe after Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paulo Coelho was the one among the greatest writers of Latin-America.