Product Description

The new bestselling novel, now in paperback, from international literary phenomenon Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist. A chance meeting in Rio takes Maria to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune, yet ends up working the streets as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from love while at the same time developing a fascination with sex. Eventually, Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness, 'sexual pleasure for its own sake', or risking everything to find her own 'inner light' and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love. A daring modern fable about the nature of love and sex.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12037 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Paulo Coelho's astonishingly beautiful writing in Eleven Minutes virtually guarantees it the cult status that The Alchemist already enjoys. But what is the Paulo Coelho phenomenon? How can an author who (only a short time ago) was virtually unknown to most readers have taken the world of books by storm--and without the benefit of glitzy advertising? The answer is simple: quality. Such books as The Fifth Mountain andThe Devil and Miss Prym are enough to explain a considerable following for the author, with their atmospheric prose and involving characters.

Eleven Minutes tells the story of young Maria living an innocent life in a Brazilian village and is played out in a measured fashion, but with all the author's brilliant scene-setting (very lush here) fully in place. But then Maria experiences love and suffers great pain. From this point, Coelho has us inexorably in his grip. Maria's disillusionment with love leads her to Geneva where she finally ends up selling her body (Coelho may offer us the beauty of life, but never at the expense of its harshness). Maria's approach to sex is complex--this is no mere revulsion arising from what she is now doing with her life. And then she meets a seductive young painter, who may or may not offer her a new path in life. But does she prefer to continue on the dark sexual odyssey she has embarked on, at the expense of real love?

There are echoes of DH Lawrence in Coelho's exploration of the sacred and spiritual aspects of sex and it's a brave author who tackles a subject that can so easily slip into strained seriousness. That never happens here, and Maria's journey is one that the reader willingly undertakes; the lesson she learns are lessons for the reader. --Barry Forshaw

Review
PRAISE FOR ELEVEN MINUTES"Has a strange and potent chemistry of its own." The Observer"Coelho has a deceptively simple but elegant writing style which sits well with this strange but gripping tale." Glasgow Evening Times"Refreshing and insightful...an uplifting read." What's On In London"A simply-told fable for our times, highlighting the quest for personal spiritual enlightenment." Belfast TelegraphAwarded 4 stars in New Woman magazine review

The Brazilian Coelho, whose inspirational fables have sold about 50 million copies in 150 countries in 57 languages, at times persuades reviewers with his talent but often is seen as gucky and spiritually challenged. Here, he returns to a theme first picked up in By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1996), a tale in which sex and God are whipped into a tasty mayonnaise. Eleven Minutes, while reminding us that sex is sacred, is more persuasively written, perhaps because it feels taken from a real life. Coelho says his story was born when a prostitute named Maria (or Sonia) approached him and asked if he knew what it was like to live without love. The novel's Maria learns of sex through masturbation, first as a child and later as an adolescent. When she loses her virginity (at 16 or 17), she finds self-sex more satisfying and heavenly than intercourse, although she forces her deflowerer to return and make love to her several more times. Nope, solo's better-though loveless. At 19, she takes a job at a draper's shop, strings her lovelorn boss along for raises while putting him off from her bed. Love only makes you suffer, so forget it. A vacation on the beach in Rio leads to her being signed as a Samba dancer and flown to Geneva, where she dances in a family restaurant but is a prisoner, gets fired, gives her photo to model agencies, trusts in her own intelligence, charm and willpower, but in the end, guiltlessly, becomes a well-paid regular prostitute at Geneva's expensive Copacabana. But is she frigid-or will the artist Ralf Hart, as uninterested in sex as she, discover the eleven minutes she needs from the commencement of sex to orgasm (an idea Coelho adapts from Irving Wallace's The Seven Minutes)? Down-to-earth dialogue and detail about classy whoring: one of Coelho's strongest. (Kirkus Reviews)

Glasgow Evening Times
'Coelho has a deceptively simple but elegant writing style which sits well with this strange but gripping tale.'

Customer Reviews

Quite honestly a terrible book
This must be a contender for the worst book I've ever read. I read 'The Alchemist' by the same author largely because it appeared in the 'BBC 100 favourite reads' poll and was described as 'life changing'. I didn't like it, but thought this may just be due to the fact that the story is a cross between a parable and a self-help book, and decided to give Coelho another go. I shouldn't have bothered!
The story here is of a naive young Brazilian girl wanting to make some money by travelling to Switzerland ostensibly as a dancer, but soon becomes involved in prostitution. It's full of unbelievable scenarios and characters, some of which are frankly risible, mixed with a generous dose of half-baked adolescent philosophy. The heroine moves from an abortive S&M encounter to embracing it with full gusto in the blink of an eye after a brief walk along Lake Geneva, before finding her true love. The ridiculously cheesey ending had me reaching for a brown paper bag.
The writing style is very simple (translated from Portugese), and makes it easy to read, although lacking in depth. Thankfully it's short.
I'm amazed anyone could give this 5 stars!
Oh, .....did I mention I didn't like it??

Vying for top spot for my number 1 book!
This is the first of Coelho's books I've read - and it has quite simply left a profound impression on me. Very thought provoking and grabbed me from the first words, then dragged me through the rest as I couldn't keep up with the words. I guess some books speak only to you at the right point you pick it up - and this was one of those moments for me. Bought almost a year ago it's just been sitting on my shelf. And when I picked it up to start reading, I had no idea what the book was about or what Eleven Minutes meant.
One of the negative comments in an earlier review said you'll only enjoy this book if the Celestine Prophecy was your thing. Now much as I know the Celestine Prophecy has it's own cult following (of higher being spiritual schmaltz and all that), that book meant nothing to me and absolutely cannot be compared to Eleven Minutes at all.
I know that I will return to read this book several times and has now become a treasured possession.

Worth reading

This is my second reading for Paulo Coelho, Such amazing wonderful reading that I was enjoying each minute of it. I liked this as much as I liked The Alchemist.

The concept of the story ( despite the job of the main character as a hooker ) it gives alot of moral and themes for personal life.


This man has a lovely style of writing that capture you with him till the end, especially with this novel from a woman side

Overall, it is a worth reading for those who would like to understand the male and female for different sides.