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![Eleven Minutes by [Paulo Coelho, Margaret Jull Costa]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PiVXGiauL._SY346_.jpg)
Eleven Minutes Kindle Edition
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The bestselling novel from international literary phenomenon Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist.
A chance meeting in Rio takes Maria to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune, yet ends up working the streets as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from 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, sex in the context of love.
A daring modern fable about the nature of love and sex.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperCollins
- Publication date28 April 2011
- File size6997 KB
Product description
About the Author
Review
PRAISE FOR ELEVEN MINUTES
“Has a strange and potent chemistry of its own.” The Observer
“Coelho has a deceptively simple but elegant writing style which sits well with this strange but gripping tale.” Glasgow Evening Times
“Refreshing and insightful…an uplifting read.” What’s On In London
“A simply-told fable for our times, highlighting the quest for personal spiritual enlightenment.” Belfast Telegraph
Awarded 4 stars in New Woman magazine review
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.From The Washington Post
Sacred sex. A paradoxical, utopian impossibility or a life- sustaining, attainable goal? This is the major question that underpins Paulo Coelho's new novel, Eleven Minutes, the tale of Maria, a naive young woman from Brazil who becomes a high-class prostitute in Switzerland. (The title of the book refers to the hypothetical average duration for an act of coitus.) And while Coelho comes down firmly in the end for the reality of a holy carnality, the path he takes to that affirmation acknowledges completely the snares and labyrinths awaiting any explorer of the fusion of body and soul.
The novel opens with a rather striking sentence: "Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria." Unfortunately, Coelho then feels the immediate need to break the fourth wall and address the reader about the propriety of yoking fairy-tale beginnings with the subject matter of profane love. One braces oneself for a continually intrusive authorial presence, consonant with Coelho's extra-literary reputation as a guru and New Age spokesperson, in the grand manner of Khalil Gibran. Much to Coelho's credit, however, this initial intrusion is anomalous. The rest of the narrative embeds itself firmly in Maria's perceptions and experiences, her emotions, dreams and struggles to understand life. By the end of the book, she fully owns her story, Coelho's talent and restraint having elevated her from the status of mere mouthpiece and symbol to that of uniquely individuated life force.
We meet Maria when she is still a young girl living in Brazil's unsophisticated interior. Maria's girlhood experiments with romance convince her that love is a delusion, or at least it is not for her. Attaining her majority, she becomes a shopgirl with limited prospects. But a vacation to Rio brings her into contact with a Swiss tourist looking to hire dancers for his club in Geneva. Here Coelho is delightfully ambiguous, letting us believe that Roger, the Swiss, may be a white slaver. But, no, he really does run a dance club, and Maria is soon hoofing it in Geneva. But after falling out with Roger, she drifts on her own initiative into life as a bar-girl. Quickly adapting to the coarse but not uninteresting role of prostitute, she endures nearly a year of service, until she has accumulated enough money to return to Brazil in style. At that point she meets a young artist, Ralf Hart, and begins to fall in love, disturbing her hard-won equilibrium and raising the issue of whether the two halves of her nature can be satisfied by any one man.
Coelho's prose -- at least in the fluid English translation by Margaret Jull Costa -- is limpid and unadorned, as easy to assimilate as water. (Of course, sometimes one wants wine instead, and Coelho's prose will not deliver such a kick.) This unornate language stands Coelho in good stead during the scenes of actual sex, of which there are surprisingly few, compared to the scenes of Maria thinking about sex and its mysteries. These explicit passages, especially the long-denied consummation between Ralf and Maria, are gratifyingly erotic and will not be earning Coelho any nominations for the Guardian's Bad Sex writing awards.
Coelho has spoken in interviews about producing manuscripts that are several times longer than the work ultimately published, and then stripping away everything viewed as extraneous. This practice results in books that read more as allegories than grittily mimetic renderings of life. (Contrast this book with William Vollman's similarly themed The Royal Family.) None of the characters other than Maria and, to some extent, Ralf (who, in light of his parallel worldly successes and troubles with wives, may be an avatar of Coelho himself), is any deeper than his functionality demands. For instance, Maria's best friend in Geneva is a female librarian known as "the librarian." Her main role is to deliver a lecture on clitoral orgasms. Likewise, Coelho sketches in the settings just enough to serve as backdrops to Maria's quest.
It can easily be argued that Coelho's first smash hit, The Alchemist (1993), set the template for Maria's story. The shepherd in that earlier novel is bent on living out his "Personal Legend" through a voyage of self-exploration, as is Maria. Both decry the failure to dream and the impossibility of living the dreams of others. The two characters even buck themselves up in near-identical terms. The shepherd: "He had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in search of his treasure." Maria: "I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure." Why, it turns out that Maria has even read a copy of what can only be The Alchemist! But while The Alchemist was almost asexual in its romance, this novel revels in the physicality of love and thus serves to complement the earlier book.
At times Maria's sacrifices on the altar of sex almost resemble the excruciations of the heroine of Lars von Trier's film "Breaking the Waves." But Coelho's basically optimistic and life-affirming temperament and his sense of humor (Maria's reaction to the librarian's sexually empowering lecture amounts to wishing the woman would just shut up) redeem the book from any such Nordic angst. By the time the fairy tale ending arrives, we feel that Maria has earned her rewards. And, per Coelho's mission, we are inspired to feel that so might we.
Reviewed by Paul Di Filippo
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Back Cover
Author of the international bestsellier ‘The Alchemist’
'His books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people.' THE TIMES
This is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heart-broken and believing that 'Love is a terrible thing that makes you suffer …' When a chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, she dreams of finding fame and fortune yet ends up working as a prostitute.
As Maria drifts further away from love, she develops a fascination with sex. But when she meets a handsome young painter she finds she must choose between pursuing a dark path of sexual pleasure for its own sake, or risking everything for the possibility of sacred sex; sex in the context of love.
Eleven Minutes is a gripping and daring novel, which sensitively explores the sacred nature of sex and love, inviting us to confront our own prejudices and embrace our 'inner light'.
PAULO COELHO was born in Brazil and has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Renowned for his best-loved work, The Alchemist, he has sold more than 43 million books worldwide and has been translated into 56 languages. The recipient of numerous prestigious international awards, amongst them the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum and France's Legion d'Honneur, Paulo Coelho is a writer with the power to inspire nations.
--This text refers to the cassette edition.Book Description
Product details
- ASIN : B004XYX4WU
- Publisher : HarperCollins; New Ed edition (28 April 2011)
- Language : English
- File size : 6997 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 296 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #38,020 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #629 in Spirituality (Books)
- #1,190 in Motivational Self-Help
- #1,747 in Religion & Spirituality (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Paulo Coelho is the author of "The Alchemist", he was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Being the author of 30 books that have sold over 320 million copies in 170 countries, he has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Paulo Coelho has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2007 and this has allowed him to continue to promote intercultural dialogue and to focus on the needs of children. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the recipient of over 115 awards and honours, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Grinzane Cavour Book Award and the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, to name a few.
Other titles include “The Pilgrimage”, “Brida”, "The Supreme Gift", “The Valkyries”, “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”, “Maktub”, “The Fifth Mountain”, “Manual of the Warrior of Light”, “Veronika Decides to Die”, “The Devil and Miss Prym”, “Stories for Parents, Children and Grandchildren”, “Eleven Minutes”, “The Zahir”, “Like the Flowing River”, “The Witch of Portobello”, “The Winner Stands Alone”, “Aleph”, “Manuscript Found in Accra”, “Adultery”, “The Spy”, “Hippie”. Also “Journey” guided journal.
https://paulocoelhoblog.com/
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Top reviews from India
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There she works in a night club, also tries modelling but was Unsuccessful. She mets an Arab man who was Mesmerized by her beauty and offers her 1000 francs for a night. She accepted the offer as she was out of money. Gradually she decided to become a Prostitute.
She mets Milan, owner of a famous club Rue de berne and joins the club as a prostitute. Soon, she becomes famous and other girls envied her. She focused on money and closed all the doors for love.
She mets a painter,Ralf, and starts to fall in love. Maria, learns about sacred sex, that is loving and owing someone's soul.
Now, in this dilemma of her love towards Ralf and her Fantasies,she decides to head back home.
During her journey as a prostitute she learns that it only take 11 minutes for a person to have sex and hence the book is named.
The book contains strong scenes of sex,pleasure, BDSM, masturbation etc.
Since I am In love with paulo coelho's writing, I found the plot is very strong and characters are well built.

By Aishwarya rathor on 21 August 2018
There she works in a night club, also tries modelling but was Unsuccessful. She mets an Arab man who was Mesmerized by her beauty and offers her 1000 francs for a night. She accepted the offer as she was out of money. Gradually she decided to become a Prostitute.
She mets Milan, owner of a famous club Rue de berne and joins the club as a prostitute. Soon, she becomes famous and other girls envied her. She focused on money and closed all the doors for love.
She mets a painter,Ralf, and starts to fall in love. Maria, learns about sacred sex, that is loving and owing someone's soul.
Now, in this dilemma of her love towards Ralf and her Fantasies,she decides to head back home.
During her journey as a prostitute she learns that it only take 11 minutes for a person to have sex and hence the book is named.
The book contains strong scenes of sex,pleasure, BDSM, masturbation etc.
Since I am In love with paulo coelho's writing, I found the plot is very strong and characters are well built.

This book is a box full full of paradoxes. It begins with "Once upon a time there was a prostitute named Maria..." It follows the life of a young girl named Maria from her first heartbreak to her discovery of sacred sex; a perfect blend of true love , spirituality and pleasure of the body.
Maria's life as she thinks is a series of mistake, her pure innocence is shattered by bitternesses in relationships in her childhood. She seems adventure and denies to be a ordinary country girl from Brazil that she is . She believes there's much more to life . She grabs her share of fortune and flys to city of her dreams - Rio de jenerio ! Lured by an foreigner Roger, for money fame and adventure she lands up as a bar dancer in Europe.
But soon the need for money and prevailing circumstances takes her in to the profession of body trade - Prostitution. She enrolls herself in one of the most top pick up bars of Geneva, Switzerland. Every day there's more clients, she takes it strong, only as a profession and continues . Soon she's the favourite of all . The "Special client's too.
"I would like to believe that I am in love .with someone I don't know and who didn't figure in my plans at all. All these months of self control , of denying love ,have had exactly the opposite results. I have let myself be swept away by the first person to treat me a little differently. "
- From Maria's diary.
Then enters a handsome painter Ralf Hart and in no time Mr.Hart steels Maria's heart. They get into a mysterious relationship. Not of love , not of friendship but of something even more than that. And then begins her quest for the meaning of love , does that pleasure she wants she gets? Will Ralf Hart stay with her? What will be Maria's next mistake ?
CHARACTERS
Paulo Coelho's books are mostly character driven. His lyricist side is shown by the words of his characters . The lead character or protagonist was weak , meare, clumsy in the beginning and grew up to be a confident , self satisfied woman . Maria who never got into proper relationships and always searched for love learnt to love without expecting a return , and learnt to love without conditions . Most importantly she learned to love herself . Maria's life was taken from a real life Prostitute.
Apart from Maria there was one notable character . And that is Ralf Hart ! A successful 29 year old handsome painter with whom Maria secretly falls in love. Ralf was portrayed as a twice divorced melancholic man who has lost interest in everything except his passion for painting.
The growth of the characters was quite appreciable. The way the characters bloomed and discovered themselves caught me . I felt for the characters. And that's how characters should be. They should touch your soul and imprint a mark on them. A mark for the rest of your life
WRITING
I loved the writing style of the book . The chapters are written from a 3rd person's point of view. But after each chapter there's a note from Maria's diary where she pours her heart out and writes what she feels . Through these little segments the author connects the readers to his characters. There are quotable words and phrases all around the book . Also as expected we get to see Coelho's lyricist style of writing. The writing of the book makes it a treat of read and hooks you up untill the last page .
OVERALL
I liked this book alot. And it's been a day I haven't started on a new book cause the book touched me so deep that I wanted to treasure the feeling of it . The reason behid me giving it a 4stars and not a complete 5starts is that , there are minor mistakes in the book . Like the confusion of places . If you are someone who is not familiar with different places it will be a little hard for you to grasp things . As there was many location changes in the book we expect to be transported to those exotic location with the words and feel the places (at least that's what I expect from a book) but the author failed in on that aspect. The places were not described vividly and I craved for details . The book is written apparently and focus is made on the development of characters so it lacked that narrative parts . There weren't much of an explanation to anything . And that's the reason I ended up giving it a 4star.
Go ahead read it.. am sure u will like it ..
If my review helped you in any way do mark it helpful.
Also there's a full review on my blog - Indian Bibliophile .

By Parna Sarkar on 28 April 2017
This book is a box full full of paradoxes. It begins with "Once upon a time there was a prostitute named Maria..." It follows the life of a young girl named Maria from her first heartbreak to her discovery of sacred sex; a perfect blend of true love , spirituality and pleasure of the body.
Maria's life as she thinks is a series of mistake, her pure innocence is shattered by bitternesses in relationships in her childhood. She seems adventure and denies to be a ordinary country girl from Brazil that she is . She believes there's much more to life . She grabs her share of fortune and flys to city of her dreams - Rio de jenerio ! Lured by an foreigner Roger, for money fame and adventure she lands up as a bar dancer in Europe.
But soon the need for money and prevailing circumstances takes her in to the profession of body trade - Prostitution. She enrolls herself in one of the most top pick up bars of Geneva, Switzerland. Every day there's more clients, she takes it strong, only as a profession and continues . Soon she's the favourite of all . The "Special client's too.
"I would like to believe that I am in love .with someone I don't know and who didn't figure in my plans at all. All these months of self control , of denying love ,have had exactly the opposite results. I have let myself be swept away by the first person to treat me a little differently. "
- From Maria's diary.
Then enters a handsome painter Ralf Hart and in no time Mr.Hart steels Maria's heart. They get into a mysterious relationship. Not of love , not of friendship but of something even more than that. And then begins her quest for the meaning of love , does that pleasure she wants she gets? Will Ralf Hart stay with her? What will be Maria's next mistake ?
CHARACTERS
Paulo Coelho's books are mostly character driven. His lyricist side is shown by the words of his characters . The lead character or protagonist was weak , meare, clumsy in the beginning and grew up to be a confident , self satisfied woman . Maria who never got into proper relationships and always searched for love learnt to love without expecting a return , and learnt to love without conditions . Most importantly she learned to love herself . Maria's life was taken from a real life Prostitute.
Apart from Maria there was one notable character . And that is Ralf Hart ! A successful 29 year old handsome painter with whom Maria secretly falls in love. Ralf was portrayed as a twice divorced melancholic man who has lost interest in everything except his passion for painting.
The growth of the characters was quite appreciable. The way the characters bloomed and discovered themselves caught me . I felt for the characters. And that's how characters should be. They should touch your soul and imprint a mark on them. A mark for the rest of your life
WRITING
I loved the writing style of the book . The chapters are written from a 3rd person's point of view. But after each chapter there's a note from Maria's diary where she pours her heart out and writes what she feels . Through these little segments the author connects the readers to his characters. There are quotable words and phrases all around the book . Also as expected we get to see Coelho's lyricist style of writing. The writing of the book makes it a treat of read and hooks you up untill the last page .
OVERALL
I liked this book alot. And it's been a day I haven't started on a new book cause the book touched me so deep that I wanted to treasure the feeling of it . The reason behid me giving it a 4stars and not a complete 5starts is that , there are minor mistakes in the book . Like the confusion of places . If you are someone who is not familiar with different places it will be a little hard for you to grasp things . As there was many location changes in the book we expect to be transported to those exotic location with the words and feel the places (at least that's what I expect from a book) but the author failed in on that aspect. The places were not described vividly and I craved for details . The book is written apparently and focus is made on the development of characters so it lacked that narrative parts . There weren't much of an explanation to anything . And that's the reason I ended up giving it a 4star.
Go ahead read it.. am sure u will like it ..
If my review helped you in any way do mark it helpful.
Also there's a full review on my blog - Indian Bibliophile .


Just paulo is sometimes soo boring.. like he will always.. mention about the dreams of girl. which were having husband home etc.. its so irritating .. he wrote same lines not 1000 times ,then it should be 100 times .. same lines. else.. its good but little more descriptive.. philosophy.. ..
story of girl who have dreams of being rich .. she went to paris .. as dancer n turn to be prostitute ..then
girl met two boy one artist and other who made her slave for sex..its a good book
and at last artist guy come at airport and merry her.. that was.. that was the suspense at end .. :)

By ravinder on 6 March 2021
Just paulo is sometimes soo boring.. like he will always.. mention about the dreams of girl. which were having husband home etc.. its so irritating .. he wrote same lines not 1000 times ,then it should be 100 times .. same lines. else.. its good but little more descriptive.. philosophy.. ..
story of girl who have dreams of being rich .. she went to paris .. as dancer n turn to be prostitute ..then
girl met two boy one artist and other who made her slave for sex..its a good book
and at last artist guy come at airport and merry her.. that was.. that was the suspense at end .. :)




By Papri Soren on 20 January 2019


By Neha on 18 May 2022


The quality of book delivered was good. Original.
I'm not giving spoilers, all I'll say is even if you're someone doesn't read much or is a beginner can read it. Don't needa dictionary by your side. 😁
Top reviews from other countries

Our main character is Maria, a young girl from a remote village of Brazil, whose first encounters with love leave her heartbroken. We learn a bit about her heartbreak before she goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland where she works in a nightclub and then tries to be a model but eventually becomes a prostitute. Maria makes friends, enemies and lovers during her time as a prostitute and she learns a lot about herself as a woman and about sexual desires and needs. We follow Maria as she struggles between her sexual fantasies and true love and everything she encounters along that path of discovery.
I wasn’t sure what I expected with this book but I think I got more than I thought both good and not so good. I enjoyed the writing and the flow of the story but I really disliked Maria. I liked Ralph and the Librarian as characters but Maria annoyed me, she seemed to have this detachment even when talking about love although she really did mature and grow as the book went on. As you would expect with a book based around a prostitute, there are a few scenes with sex, pleasure and masturbation and also a couple of BDSM scenes, all of which, I felt were well written. The subject is treated with sensitivity and well, considering it was written by a man and then translated into English.
I did feel like more could have happened, it’s very slow paced and had a predictable ending but overall, it’s a nice story and good introduction into Coelho’s writing. I also have ‘The Alchemist’ on my Kindle so I look forward to reading that soon.

I love how this is written, with great debate and spiritual insight as the core. We see our life paths to be uniquely twisted and contorted but here Paulo shows our paths to be universal, repetitive and surprisingly commonplace. Sacred sex opens the doors to the soul and frees the beautiful bird that was caged. If this sounds crazy to you that's completely fine. Open your mind, read, and learn to love ❤️ x


