His latest.....
"Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of the people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart..."
Writing these words in her diary at the age of seventeen, Maria, the protagonist of Paulo Coelho's latest novel, Eleven Minutes, hints at the quest charted in this moving work. Disillusioned with her emotional and sexual past, the idea of two people, in a relationship, joining their bodies and souls in perfect harmony becomes Utopian to Maria.
Paulo Coelho's books have been translated into 56 languages and have sold 43 million copies in more than 150 countries. His latest subject, the sacred side of sex, was inspired by the life of a Brazilian prostitute living in Switzerland. During an author signing in Geneva in 2000, Paulo met a woman who had worked in various clubs under the alias Maria. It was after hearing her story - and the story of several other young women - that Coelho decided it would be an excellent way to approach a subject in which he had a long-standing interest. "To write about the sacred side of sex, it was necessary to understand why it had been so profaned", he explains.
The protagonist, Maria, comes from north-eastern Brazil and has had an adolescence marked by heartbreak. A beautiful young woman, she could easily marry, but she does not want to do so before living her dream of seeing Rio de Janeiro. She saves up for two years and departs for the famous city. On Copacabana beach, she attracts the attention of a Swiss businessman, who later invites her to accompany him to Europe. He promises to transform her into a star. Always ready to take a risk -- and with her family's blessing -- Maria moves to Geneva with a signed contract in her hands. Had she read it carefully, however, she might have noticed the hitch: she has committed herself to working for slave wages as a dancer at a nightclub. Shortly afterwards, she ends up becoming a prostitute.
Following such a trajectory, as do so many women, Maria grows up all too quickly and finds herself further and further removed from her youthful dreams of happiness. In the course of one year in which she 'sells her time without being able to buy it back', Maria learns to be practical and realistic, immune to hope. Rather than concerning herself with dreams and ideals, she now has a concrete objective: to earn enough money to buy a farm in Brazil. Her body is her only means of doing so. Running alongside the narrative is Maria's diary, in which she records her reflections of this painful time. "My book does not pretend to be a study of prostitution", says Paulo Coelho, "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."
In fact, to say that Eleven Minutes is the story of a prostitute would be very simplistic. More important than Maria's story is what she has learned from her difficult experiences abroad. She writes in her diary: "The gospels and all the sacred texts of all religions had been written in exile, in search of God's understanding...and it is out of that doubt that books are written, pictures painted, because we don't want to forget who we are - nor can we."
Paulo Coelho 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.''
The title of Eleven Minutes is inspired by Irving Wallace's novel The Seven Minutes, published in the 70s. Wallace's bestseller deals with a long-running legal battle over the banning of a book that takes a close look at sex: in particular the seven-minute duration of the average sexual encounter. Although this censored book never existed, Paulo Coelho imagined its content and determined to write it. While Coelho abandoned his original idea, The Seven Minutes remains the inspiration for the title (modified to Eleven Minutes because Coelho found Wallace's original estimate too conservative) and the subject matter: an attempt to talk about the association and dissociation of bodily pleasures in relation to those of the heart.
After a conference in Italy in 1999, Coelho returned to his hotel to find a manuscript waiting for him. It was the story of a Brazilian prostitute, Sonia, recounting her life in Europe. The text interested him and, three years later, he was finally able to meet her in Zurich. She took him to the local red light district, Langstrasse, where his visit turned into an unusual signing session during which Coelho inscribed copies of his books for several of Sonia's colleagues. After this incident had been mentioned in the press, several other prostitutes of various nationalities, gave Paulo other manuscripts at another book signing in Geneva. And so he later met Maria, Amy, Vanessa and many others. From these meetings emerged the protagonist and the main theme of Eleven Minutes.
Translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by Montse Ballesteros
You made my day!!!!