The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [0]
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Augusto Cury
English translation copyright © 2011 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Translated by Clifford E. Landers. Translation edited by Carlos Frías.
Originally published in Brazil in 2008 by Editoria Academia de Inteligência as O
Vendedor de Sonhos.
Published by arrangement with Instituto Academia de Inteligência Ltda.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Atria Books hardcover edition February 2011
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Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cury, Augusto.
[Vendedor de sonhos. English]
The dreamseller : the calling : a novel / Augusto Cury. — 1st Atria Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“Originally published in Brazil in 2008 by Editoria Academia de Inteligência as O vendedor de sonhos.”
“Translated by Clifford E. Landers”—T.p. verso.
1. Psychological fiction. 2. Self-realization—Fiction. 3. Existentialism—Fiction.
I. Landers, Clifford E. II. Title.
PQ9698.413.U586V4613 2011
869.3’5—dc22 2010035520
ISBN 978-1-4391-9572-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-9604-5 (ebook)
I dedicate this novel to the readers in every country where my books have been published. Especially to those who in one way or another sell dreams through their intelligence, critical approach, sensibility, generosity and kindness. Dreamsellers are often outsiders in the social nest. They are abnormal. For what is normal is to wallow in the mud of individuality, egocentrism and personalism. Their legacy will be unforgettable.
Contents
Preface
The Encounter
The Introduction
Shaking the Foundation of Faith
The Losses
The Calling
The First Step
Exorcising the Demons
Strengthened by Challenges
Bartholomew’s Dream
The World Is My Home
A Band of Misfits
The Brave Little Swallows
The Most Lucid Place in Society
A Solemn Homage
The Eager Miracle Worker
A Very Complicated Disciple
An Obsessive Dream
Looking for Life Among the Dead
The Temple of Electronics
Living Longer in a Shorter Time
The White-Hot Spotlight
The Superiority of Women
The Temple of Fashion
Calling a Model and a Revolutionary
The Butterflies and the Cocoon
The Journey
Sending Forth the Disciples
The Living Dead
Midnight in the Garden of Broken Dreams
A House Divided
Psychotic or Sage?
If I Could Turn Back Time
Acknowledgments
Preface
THIS IS MY FOURTH WORK OF FICTION AND MY TWENTY-SECOND book. My novels do not have as their goal plots that merely entertain, amuse or arouse emotion. They all involve theses, whether psychological, psychiatric, sociological or philosophical. Their intent is to foment debate, to journey into the world of ideas and go beyond the borders of prejudice.
I have been writing continuously for over twenty-five years and publishing for slightly over eight years. Perhaps it is because of the voyages into the territory of the unfathomable world of the human mind. Sincerely, I do not merit this success. I am not an author who can produce texts easily. Striving to be an artisan of words, I continually write and rewrite every paragraph, day and night, as if I were a compulsive sculptor. You will find in this novel thoughts that were sculpted after having been rewritten ten or twenty times in my mind.
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