Overview

A new novel from Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist. A stranger arrives in the small mountain village. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. Burying these in the vicinity, the stranger strikes up a curious friendship with a young woman from the village -- Miss Prym. His mission is to discover whether human beings are essentially good or evil. In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho's unusual protagonist sets the town a moral challenge from which they may never recover. A fascinating meditation on the human soul, The Devil and Miss Prym illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.

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9780007116058

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His Books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people THE TIMES

Coelho's latest parable (The Zahir, 2005, etc.) has vague Kafkaesque overtones as a town is challenged to murder an innocent in exchange for prosperity. The small village of Viscos has a proud past, but at present is dying. All the young have moved to the city, leaving middle-aged shepherds and farmers and a tavern owner dependent on the occasional tourist in search of a mountain idyll. Its demise is only a matter of time as the world is in short supply of civic miracles. When a stranger comes to town, only old Berta sees what no one else can-that his invisible traveling companion is the Devil. The stranger invites Chantal Prym for a walk in the woods and there shows her two burial spots-one contains a single bar of gold, the other ten bars. It is a test for the town, and as the tavern's barmaid, Chantal is the chosen mouthpiece. The village can have the gold if in three days they commit a murder. Seeking an answer to the question of evil, the stranger is betting that humanity is immoral, even in the quaint village of Viscos. An arms manufacturer, the stranger's wife and daughters were killed by terrorists (using guns that he made), and ever since, he has had the Devil at his back and the eternal struggle between good and evil on his mind. Initially, Chantal refuses to speak, afraid of becoming complicit in the crime, but the stranger forces her hand, and soon the whole village knows of the proposed bargain. To Chantal's horror, the town accepts his offer (thanks in large part to the priest, who, eager for the deal to go through, offers a sermon on how the sacrifice of one saved humanity). Now Viscos has only to decide the victim, unless Berta and Chantal, the top choices, can change their minds. Filled with Coelho's trademark mysticism and philosophical anecdotes to illustrate a point, the brief tale is made finer by the Kafka- Shirley Jackson-derived motifs-the creepiness of a town eager for a murder offsets the author's tendencies to spiritual pontificating. A bit more playful than some of Coelho's other efforts, and all the better for it. (Kirkus Reviews)

This new novel from the multi-million selling author of The Alchemist is the third part of a trilogy which began with By The River I Sat Down And Wept (1994) and Veronika Decides To Die (1998). In his author's note Piedra Coelho writes that all three are concerned with one week in the lives of ordinary people who are confronted with profound challenges involving love, power and death. The village of Viscos is the last outpost of a rural way of life in a world of multinationals and agribusiness. A stranger arrives in this contemporary version of paradise and makes a wager with the villagers. If they murder one of their number by the end of the week, he will give them eleven gold bars. Because of a tragedy in his own life, the stranger wants to demonstrate that humanity is essentially evil. But Chantal Prym, the local barmaid he persuades to be his accomplice, proves to have a mind of her own. At the climax of the novel, Chantal confronts both the villagers and the stranger as a firing squad prepares to execute a pathetic victim. Coelho's novel is a meditation on good and evil told in the form of a contemporary parable. He draws on myth, history, folk tales, the Bible, philosophy, and European literature to produce a story with many levels. Although he is often presented as a New Age writer, Coelho's book most resembles a Brechtian investigation of the trade-off between money and morality in the modern world. In true Brechtian fashion too, Chantal, the working-class character who knows herself enough to see that she can be both good and evil, wins through. This book will please Coelho's millions of readers and will attract many more. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Paulo Coelho was born in Brazil and has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Renowned for his best-loved work The Alchemist, he has sold over 30 million books worldwide and has been translated into 42 languages. The recipient of numerous prestigious awards, he is a storyteller with the power to inspire nations and change people's lives.

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