About the book
Paulo Coelho's 2003 novel, Onze Minutos in the original Portuguese, follows Maria, a girl from a remote Brazilian village whose first experiences of love leave her heartbroken and convinced she will never find it. A chance encounter in Rio leads her to Geneva, where she hopes for fame and fortune. There she ends up working as a prostitute, and the novel sets her bleak view of love at its center. Coelho frames her dilemma as a choice between sexual pleasure for its own sake and staking everything on finding her inner light and a sacred sex joined with love.
Darshan Gajara, founder of ProductDisrupt, called it his favorite non-business book; he read it at 17 and said Maria's story opened his eyes to the wider world and gave him the courage to break free.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Darshan Gajara (Founder/ProductDisrupt)
My favorite non-business book from the limited number of books I’ve read is ‘Eleven Minutes’ by Paulo Coelho. I was 17 when I picked up this book. And like any other small town boy in India, self-discovery, adventure and sex were foreign entities to me. Going through Maria’s story (main character in the book) alone, my eyes were wide open to the outside world and provided me with courage to break free from my own little bubble and start exploring.
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