Sex, love and the novel
2003-10-11 18:44
Frankfurt - It must have been one of the hottest debates of the Frankfurt Book Fair as the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho let loose Friday on sex, love and yet more sex.
He had an excuse: his latest bestseller, Eleven Minutes, tells the story of a Brazilian prostitute who goes to Europe in a typically Coelho search for the meaning of life.
In a discussion on the sidelines of the world's largest book fair, Coelho began talking about life in general, then love, then sex, and worked his way to orgasms.
"Sex is a language of souls," he writes in the book. Or, sexual ecstasy is the equivalent of mystical ecstasy.
You lose your identity
"Sex is not just about penetration," he told the forum. "At the moment of orgasm, you think of nothing else, it is like you are blinded. You lose your identity.
"Eleven Minutes is really me looking at my heart and saying, how did you deal with your sexuality?"
Coelho is estimated to have sold nearly 50 million books in 150 countries and 57 languages, The Alchemist alone accounting for almost half.
Later on Friday he was to attempt to get into the record books by signing the more than 50 language editions of The Alchemist.
The title of Eleven Minutes was chosen to reflect the average length of sexual intercourse, Coelho said, making his first appearance at Frankfurt for six years.
The idea for the novel came when a real prostitute named Maria approached him and asked if he knew what it was like to live without love.
The moment you care
"I was shocked," he recalled. "You can always choose not to love any more, but the moment you care, life has a meaning.
"You need love more than food, more than shelter. You can have everything but if you don't have love you have nothing."
The book starts by reading almost like a fairy story, until the end of the first sentence. "Once upon a time, there was a prostitute."
As with most of Coelho's books, the hero, or in this case heroine, ends up finding a form of happiness.
Maria, who is now married and lives in Geneva, was "very impressed" by the book and is bringing out her own now.