CANNES, France ~ International bestseller The Alchemist by Brazilian author and Bali Times columnist Paulo Coelho is to be made into a movie, with The Matrix star Laurence Fishburne directing.

Film mogul Harvey Weinstein on Sunday announced the screen adaption of the novel, written 20 years ago and translated into 56 languages, with more than 65 million copies sold.

Work on the US$60-million project, in which Fishburne will also star, is scheduled to begin probably later this year.

Coelho said in a statement released by Weinstein at the Cannes film festival that he was “very happy that my book will be filmed in the way I intended it to be.”

In the book, young Andalusian shepherd boy Santiago leaves his native Spain to travel to Egypt after having a dream of finding treasure there. Along the way he meets with a mysterious alchemist, learning about life and luck and fulfilling his dreams and winning his true love.

The film is to be shot in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and a search has been launched in Spain and Latin America to find someone to play the part of Santiago.