Eleven Minutes

"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".

Maria who is on a journey to find what true love is but 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 choose 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.

Inspiration

Coelho notes, in a short afterword, a 1970's book concerning censorship by Irving Wallace, called "The Seven Minutes". He then goes on to relate how he originally intended to use the story of a prostitute from Zurich, known as Sonia, whose story he had discovered through an unsolicited manuscript. Finally, Coelho reveals the true inspiration for the story, which is a woman actually named Maria, who lives in Lausanne with her husband and two daughters.

tyle

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.

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)
*أحدى عشر دقيقة (Arabic)
*Единайсет минути (Bulgarian)
*Onze minuts (Catalan)
*愛的十一分鐘 (Traditional Chinese)
*Jedanaest Minuta (Croatian)
*Jedenáct minut (Czech)
*Elf Minuten (Deutsch)
*Üksteist Minutit (Estonian)
*Yksitoista minuuttia (Finnish)
*Onze Minutes (French)
*Tizenegy perc (Hungarian)
*Eleven Minutes (English)
*Vienpadsmit minūtes (Latvian)
*Единaeсет минути (Macedonia)
*Elf Minuten (Nederlands)
*Elleve Minutter (Norwegian)
*Ellefu Mínútur (Icelandic)
*Jedenaście minut (Polish)
*Одиннадцать минут (Russian)
*Once minutos (Spanish)
*Έντεκα λεπτά (Greek)
*Undici Minuti (Italian)
*یازده دقیقه (Persian)
*11分間　(Japanese)
*십일 분 (Korean)
*11 นาที (Thai)
*On Bir Dakika (Turkish)
*Једанаест минута (Serbian)
*Elva minuter (Swedish)
*Unsprezece minute (Romanian)
*Sebelas Menit (Bahasa Indonesia)
*თერთმეტი წუთი (Gergian)

ee also

*Paulo Coelho