Unlike the other men she has slept with, she realizes that Ralf looks at her not as a woman but as an individual with willpower and “inner light.” Ralf is not focused on Maria as a mere sex object. After a year of working as a prostitute, Maria meets in the nightclub a handsome young man called Ralf Hart, who is a renowned painter.

She becomes fascinated by the ease with which a prostitute can earn money overnight, depending on the number of men she can charm and go to bed with. In order to earn the money Maria requires for her return to Brazil, she starts working in another nightclub. She prefers to think of herself as “an adventurer in search of treasure,” like Santiago in Coelho’s masterpiece The Alchemist (1988), and, incidentally, has read a copy of that book. However, due to the restrictions he imposes on the dancers and the little money he pays them, Maria soon has a falling-out with the man she thought to be her benefactor. Maria is attracted by his promises of money and accompanies him to Switzerland. During a holiday trip to Rio de Janeiro, Maria meets a Swiss tourist, Roger, who is looking for girls to hire as dancers for his club in Geneva. Maria, a naïve, attractive Brazilian girl, becomes heartbroken during her teenage years through her realization that love is a terrible and disappointing emotion that brings only pain and suffering. Excerpts from her diary appended at the end of every chapter, strikingly capturing Maria’s perceptions and emotions at different junctures in her life. The detailed portrayal of the protagonist Maria’s quest for love helps to build her vibrant individualistic character. Authorial intrusions, however, do not recur in the narrative. The novel’s fairy-tale opening yokes the innocent with the profane: “Once upon a time there was a prostitute called Maria.” The author immediately steps into the story to explain the difficulty in combining two contradictory mores, establishing the story’s realistic nature. An invocation to the Virgin Mary, a dedication, a parable from the Bible, and an ancient hymn about the greatness of women serve as prologues to the main narrative.

The title Eleven Minutes refers to the approximate duration for the act of coitus but connotes the infinite possibilities and meanings contained in this brief physical and emotional act. This novel differs from the rest of the writer’s oeuvre as it deals with a subject which, Coelho states in the book’s dedication, is “harsh, difficult, shocking.” The novel explores the theme of the sanctity of sex by narrating the story of a young prostitute who eventually finds true love, realizing that sex for material gain is profane, and emotional love, if reciprocated by the partner, raises the sexual union to a holy act. Written by the brilliant Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho (1947– ), Eleven Minutes was originally published in Portuguese. Analysis of Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes

Eleven minutes full novel