Eleven Minutes
The bestselling novel, now in ebook, 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.
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Eleven Minutes
TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY MARGARET JULL COSTA
Paulo Coelho
On 29th May 2002, just hours before I put the finishing touches to this book, I visited the Grotto in Lourdes, in France, to fill a few bottles with miraculous water from the spring. Inside the Basilica, a gentleman in his seventies said to me: ‘You know, you look just like Paulo Coelho.’ I said that I was Paulo Coelho. The man embraced me and introduced me to his wife and grand-daughter. He spoke of the importance of my books in his life, concluding: ‘They make me dream.’ I have often heard these words before, and they always please me greatly. At that moment, however, I felt really frightened, because I knew that my new novel, Eleven Minutes, dealt with a subject that was harsh, difficult, shocking. I went over to the spring, filled my bottles, then came back and asked him where he lived (in northern France, near Belgium) and noted down his name.
This book is dedicated to you, Maurice Gravelines. I have a duty to you, your wife and grand-daughter and to myself to talk about the things that concern me and not only about what everyone would like to hear. Some books make us dream, others bring us face to face with reality, but what matters most to the author is the honesty with which a book is written.
O, Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who turn to you. Amen.
And, behold, a woman which was in the city, a sinner; and when she knew that Jesus was sitting at meat in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster cruse of ointment.
And standing behind at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what manner of woman this is which toucheth him, that she is a sinner.
And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.
A certain lender had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
And when they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?
Simon answered and said, He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.
And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she hath washed my feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.
Thou gavest me no kiss: but she, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this she hath anointed my feet with ointment.
Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
Luke 7: 37—47
Table of Contents
And so Maria’s adolescent years
She arrived feeling exhausted and
Maria chose to be an adventurer
However important Maria thought
When she arrived at the Copacabana
Nyah, the only one of her work
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
For I am the first and the last
I am the venerated and the despised
I am the prostitute and the saint
I am the wife and the virgin
I am the mother and the daughter
I am the arms of my mother
I am barren and my children are many
I am the married woman and the spinster
I am the woman who gives birth and she
who never procreated
I am the consolation for the pain of birth
I am the wife and the husband
And it was my man who created me
I am the mother of my father
I am the sister of my husband
And he is my rejected son
Always respect me
For I am the shameful and the magnificent one
Hymn to Isis, third or fourth century BC, discovered in Nag Hammadi
Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. ‘Once upon a time’ is how all the best children’s stories begin and ‘prostitute’ is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let’s keep that beginning.
Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.
