A Writer’s Creativity Across the Life Span: Paulo Coelho in Psychobiographical Perspective

Claude-Hélène Mayer
Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany) and University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

David Maree
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Mayer, C.-H., & Maree, D. (2018). A writer’s creativity across the life span: Paulo Coelho in psychobiographical perspective. Journal of Genius and Eminence, 3(1), 85-98. http://dx.doi.org/10.18536/jge.2018.04.3.1.08

This study on the world-known writer Paulo Coelho uses a psychobiographical single case study approach to explore creativity across his life span. Coelho is one of the best known international contemporary writers. Throughout his life he has shown a huge amount of artistic creativity. Creativity, in this study, is viewed as a form of mental activity which needs the systemic interaction of the individual thinking and the socio-cultural context. It therefore takes the person, process, product and environment into account to manage the areas of investigation. Methodologically, this single psychobiographical case study is based on Dilthey’s modern hermeneutics. First- and third-person data were collected and analysed through content analysis. Findings show the development of creativity in terms of mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity throughout Paulo Coelho’s life span. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for theory and practice are given.