Paulo writes, ‘She planned to enter convent, she learned first aid (according to some teachers, a lot of people were dying in Africa), worked harder in her religious knowledge classes, and began to imagine herself as a modern day saint, saving lives and visiting jungles inhabited by lions and tigers.’Īgain, ‘She looked out to sea: her geography lessons told her that if she set off in a straight line, she would reach Africa, with its lions and jungles full of gorillas. But I had issues with it, issues that I had to drop the book, pick my pen, and jot down every of my infuriation. Paulo’s style is remarkably simply and cloying that it holds you, pulls you, through and through, to the very last word. Her decisions are bold, sometimes wrong and sometimes right, but well, it is life, it is the way to learn. She has a diary where she writes deep things of herself and her experiences, quite philosophical that you begin to doubt her age. Things happen and she becomes an exotic prostitute in a bar in Geneva. Maria is a young, beautiful Brazilian girl who goes to Europe with the aim of making a lot of money through dancing. Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho starts with “Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.” Apart from the books I read when I was much younger, I’d never come across a book that starts with Once Upon a Time.
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