Eleven Minutes

File:11minutes.jpg

The cover of the Finnish edition of the book.

Eleven Minutes (Onze Minutos) is a 2003 novel by Paulo Coelho based around a young prostitute named Maria.

Plot introduction

Maria, from the interior of Brazil, goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland, only to find that reality is harsher than she expected and she ends up working in a brothel on Rue du Berne, the heart of Geneva's red-light district. The book deals with issues surrounding sex and sexuality, such as prostitution, sacred sex, and sex in the context of love. Because of its graphic descriptions, the novel has been described as "erotic."

Template:Spoiler Maria who is on a journey to find what true love is ends up letting her own life guide her. She enters a life that leads her down the path of sexual awakenings and almost leads to her self-destruction when she is introduced to all sides of sexual experience. When she has given up hope to find true love she meets a painter with whom she falls in love. And she must now chose where she is to take her life. Either to let it lead her or finally take control of her life and end this subtle self-destructive life she is leading. Just like many of Coelho's books, this book is also about a journey of self-discovery that leads the reader into understanding the issues of sex (in prostitution), sacred sex, and sex in the context of love. Template:Spoiler-end

Style

Coelho, for this novel, changes his writing style slightly, reverting from direct, extremely coherent, chronological narrative, to a slightly more disjointed, progressive approach. By most literary standards, this is not particularly progressive but it is by Coelho's own standards.

Major themes

The message (central to any Coelho novel) is slightly darker this time. All his books before this are very optimistic, almost overly so.

I would like to add that this book shows the optimism as well, Paulo is just trying to show that how a person can get dumbfold when it comes to choose the right path. Hence the lesson is for each individual who hesitates to make the decisions. The character of Maria was of such a kind and the lesson is to grow with the hope of a sunny day, despite of a long rainy season which seems will never end.

Translations

Although the novel was originally written in Portuguese and published as Onze Minutos, it has been translated to numerous foreign languages.

• Njëmbëdhjetë minuta (Albanian)
• Единайсет минути (Bulgarian)
• Jedanaest Minuta (Croatian)
• Jedenáct minut (Czech)
• Elf Minuten (Deutsch)
• Yksitoista minuuttia (Finnish)
• Onze Minutes (French)
• Tizenegy perc (Hungarian)
• Eleven Minutes (English)
• Elf Minuten (Nederlands)
• Elleve Minutter (Norwegian)
• Jedenaście minut (Polish)
• Once minutos (Spanish)
• Έντεκα λεπτά (Greek)
• Undici Minuti (Italian)
• یازده دقیقه (Farsi/Persian)
• 11分間　(Japanese)
• 십일 분 (Korean)
• 11 นาที (Thai)
• On Bir Dakika (Turkish)

See also

• Paulo Coelho

External links

• About the book