Author of international bestsellers The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes and The Zahir and one of the world’s best-loved story tellers, Paulo Coelho is back with a gripping and intriguing new novel, The Witch of Portobello. Charting the disappearance of Athena, the novel is pieced together through interviews with those who knew her well, her friends, lovers, parents and those acquaintances who hardly knew her at all, weaving through Romania and Beirut to London, where her life takes a dramatic turn…
From one of the world's best loved storytellers, Paulo Coelho, comes a riveting novel tracing the mysterious life and disappearance of Athena dubbed ‘the Witch of Portobello’. This is the story of Athena, or Sherine, to give her the name she was baptised with. Her life is pieced together through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all – parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances, her ex-husband. The novel unravels Athena's mysterious beginnings, via an orphanage in Romania, to a childhood in Beirut. When war breaks out, her adoptive family move with her to London, where a dramatic turn of events occurs… Athena, who has been dubbed 'the Witch of Portobello' for her seeming powers of prophecy, disappears dramatically, leaving those who knew her to solve the mystery of her life and abrupt departure. Like The Alchemist, The Witch of Portobello is the kind of story that will transform the way readers think about love, passion, joy and sacrifice.
