Eleven Minutes

<p><strong>&#8220;One of Coelho&#8217;s strongest.&#8221;&#8212;<em>Kirkus Reviews</em></strong></p><p><strong>&#8220;The book casts a curiously sweet spell.&#8221;&#8212;<em>Entertainment Weekly</em></strong></p><p><strong>From the author of beloved international bestseller <em>The Alchemist</em>, a daring novel that explores the sacred nature of sex and love and invites us to confront our own prejudices and demons.</strong></p><p><em>Eleven Minutes</em> tells the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that &#8220;love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer.&#8221; A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune, yet ends up working as a prostitute.</p><p>In Geneva, Maria&#8217;s despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria must choose between pursuing a path of darkness&#8212;sexual pleasure for its own sake&#8212;or risking everything to find her own inner light and the possibility of true love.</p><p><strong>&#8220;Sensual . . . [An] adults-only fairly tale.&#8221;&#8212;<em>Washington Post</em></strong></p><p><strong>&#8220;[This] Brazilian wizard makes books disappear from stores.&#8221;&#8212;<em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em></strong></p>