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 Eleven Minutes

Eleven Minutes is a modern fable of sex and love... Click here to read an exclusive preview of the first chapter.

Maria is a beautiful dreamer from a small Brazilian town... her dreams of finding fame and fortune take her to Geneva. Her dreams are soon quashed however and she ends up working the streets as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from the myth of 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.

In this daring new novel, Paulo Coelho sensitively explores the nature of sex and love... he says, "To write about the sacred side of sex, it was necessary to understand why it had been so profaned."

With Eleven Minutes Paulo challenges us to question the true meaning of love... 

The inspiration for Eleven Minutes came from several sources, the first of them being Paulo’s long-standing interest in the issues surrounding, and people involved with, prostitution. 

“My book does not pretend to be a study of prostitution,” says Paulo. “I tried to completely avoid judging the main character for the choice she made. What truly interests me are the different ways in which people approach sex.” 

He was spurred to shape his interest into a novel when, coming back to his hotel after a conference, he found a manuscript waiting for him. The manuscript’s author was Sonia, a Brazilian woman who, like Maria in Eleven Minutes, had become a prostitute in Europe. When he finally met with Sonia in Zurich, he listened to her story and then did an impromptu signing session in Zurich’s red-light district for Sonia’s colleagues. 

The media publicised this unusual event and this attention in turn prompted prostitutes from all over Europe to send Paulo their own stories. From these meetings and manuscripts emerged the themes of Eleven Minutes. 

Paulo says he intends neither to spark nor to avoid controversy - his commitment is to speak only about what truly interests him, not what people want to hear. He explains: "Some books make us dream, others bring us back to reality, but there is no getting away from what is most important to an author: being honest in what one writes.’’

don't just walk through life... 

dance through it...

BIOGRAPHY

(Rio de Janeiro, 1947) "Paulo Coelho  is not only one of the most widely read but also one the most influential authors writting today" wrote the Bambi awards in Germany. "His books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people" wrote The Times in UK.  +

To date a total of 210 translations have been sold with sales totalling almost 37 million copies. In  56 languages and published in 140 countries of the world.

Paulo Coelho has led an extreme life. Rebelliousness defined his youth. He was a hippie. He wrote popular song lyrics for some of Brazil's famous pop music stars, including Elis Regina and Raul Seixas. Shortly after, he worked as a journalist.

In 1986 Paulo Coelho walked along the Road of Santiago, the ancient Spanish pilgrimage. He would later describe this experience in ‘The Pilgrimage’, published in 1987. The following year, with his second book ‘The Alchemist’, established his worldwide fame. The book is an authentic phenomenon.

Other titles include ‘Brida’ (1990), ‘The Valkyries’ (1992), ‘Maktub’ (1994) - a compilation of his daily column, ‘By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept’ (1994), ‘The Fifth Mountain’ (1996), ‘The Manual of the Warrior of Light’ (1997); ‘Veronika Decides to Die’ (1998). His most recent novel, ‘The Devil and Miss Prym’ (2000), is a resounding success, in all the countries where it has been published to date.

For 10 years Paulo Coelho's different titles have made the top places on the bestseller lists around the world.  He was named the second best-selling author worldwide by the French magazine "Lire" (March 1999), a nomination based on information from several leading medias' bestseller lists. The critics have specially praised his poetic, realistic and philosophical style, and the symbolic language that does not speak to our brains, but to our hearts.

In addition to the books, he writes a weekly column syndicated throughout the world to several notable organizations.

Paulo Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, which provides support and opportunities for underprivileged members of the Brazilian society, especially children and elderly. He was appointed special advisor to the UNESCO program "Spiritual Convergences and Intercultural Dialogues" and he was recently appointed board member of the Schwab Foundation for social entrepreneurship. He was the first non-Muslim author to be invited to an exchange of ideas in Iran  since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.