Eleven Minutes - Book Review

“Eleven Minutes” is a fiction novel written by Paulo Coelho. The novel starts off with “Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.” Right away, Paulo Coelho pulls his readers into the novel with an oxymoron twist at the start.

Maria is a beautiful, young, Brazilian woman. The story follows Maria throughout her life. Maria spends her childhood in a rural village. There she gains some experiences with boys; however, she never really figures out how to deal with love, boys, and sex.

During her younger years she becomes convinced that she will never find true love. Instead she believes that “love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer”.

One day, she finally saves up enough money for a trip to Rio de Janeiro. There she was able to experience the larger and wider world. During her trip she meets a Swiss businessman who came to Brazil in search of young beautiful Brazilian women to dance at his club in Geneva, Switzerland. Maria signs a contract, deciding that it was fate that brought this experience to her, and that perhaps it would help her find love and adventure.

Instead of fulfilling her dreams of finding fame, fortune, and love, Maria finds a different fate. She ends up working as a prostitute. As time moves on, Maria moves further away from love, as she grows more fascinated with sex.

Maria sets a day to return home, and decides to continue working until she has enough money to leave and start a new comfortable life. As time passes Maria grows more distant from the innocent girl in search of love that we meet at the start of the novel.

Maria keeps a diary where she writes her thoughts on love and how her journey has changed those thoughts. At one point she writes, “I need to write about love- otherwise my soul won’t survive.”

Eventually, Maria grows a depressing view of love. But that view is put to the test when she meets a hansom young painter. It is then that Maria has to choose between her path of darkness, and risking everything for the possibility of finding something more sacred.

Paulo Coelho sensitively explores the nature of sex and love. Through the novel “Eleven Minutes” he invites the readers to come to their own conclusions through facing their inner demons and embracing their own “inner light”.

Coelho makes great use of imagery to vividly describe the soul of a prostitute, her sexual encounters, and her professional and personal frustrations. The language used is also simple and direct which aids to the sensitivity of the subject. By using these techniques, Coelho is able to write an attention grabbing drama on the quest for true love.

“Eleven Minutes” includes sensitive topics that are not suitable for children. The novel is a great read for young adults especially. It focuses on inner demons and desire while playing on the personal desire to find true love – which is found in almost everybody.

I would recommend “Eleven Minutes” for people to read. It is the very first book that I can remember pulling me in from the first sentence. The oxymoron that Paulo Coelho used to start the novel was genius. Apart from that, it shows a more human side of professions or actions that people might not understand. With that said, it also embodies a general topic that I believe everyone finds themselves involved in. Everyone has their inner demons and their quest to find something real – in this case “true love”. Through Maria’s experiences and her thoughts on love, she manages to shed a different light on the issue. She manages to give love a whole new spiritual meaning that makes it worth looking for…and all the more devastating to lose.