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Eleven Minutes is no exception. Following Maria, a young Brazilian girl, on her journey to Geneva in search of stardom, the story takes everything you think you know about life, love and the opposite sex and turns it into something sacred and beautiful. Now comes the twist, Maria is a prostitute. But you don’t criticise Maria for her choice, the reader emphasises, relates and pities the girl who has given up on love.
Covering the delicate subject matter in a sensitive and insightful manner, Coelho entices the reader into Maria’s world of sexual debauchery, whilst maintaining a magnificent innocence about the whole affair. And you will have never read about the female orgasm written with such purity and accuracy, particularly by a man, an impressive feat in itself.
With Eleven Minutes, Coelho takes how you live your life and makes you consider aspects in a whole new light. Is love all it’s cracked up to be? Or is it purely a fascination with pure physical pleasure that every human being harbours? Yet despite the serious undertones of each of his novels, Coelho still allows us to dream; because as he puts it so wonderfully, we’re all living with one foot in the fairy tale and the other in the unknown abyss.
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