http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:10:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This space is for the readers who have read the book. All critics, positive or negative, will be put here, and we will only exclude those that are offensive and aggressive. To criticize and to comment is something natural, we will be very strict leaving this space only for those ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/19.04.2007/readers-corner-for-the-witch-of-portobello/ Nabil Alaihi, age unknown, Bedouin It made me very happy to know that Athena had kept a photo of me in a place of honour in her apartment, but I don’t really think what I taught her had any real use. She came here to the desert, leading a three-year-old boy ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/17.04.2007/eleventh-chapter/ Peter Sherney, 47, manager of a branch of [name of Bank omitted] in Holland Park, London I only took on Athena because her family was one of our most important customers; after all, the world revolves around mutual interests. She seemed a very restless person, and so I gave her a ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/13.04.2007/tenth-chapter/ Pavel Podbielski, 57, owner of the apartment Athena and I had one thing in common: we were both refugees from a war and arrived in England when we were still children, although I fled Poland over fifty years ago. We both knew that, despite that physical change, our traditions continue to ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/09.04.2007/ninth-chapter/ Father Giancarlo Fontana I saw her when she arrived for Sunday mass, with the baby in her arms as usual. I knew that she and Lukás were having difficulties, but, until that week, these had all seemed merely the sort of misunderstandings that all couples have, and since both of them ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/04.04.2007/eighth-chapter/ Lukás Jessen-Petersen, ex-husband When Viorel was born, I had just turned twenty-two. I was no longer the student who had married a fellow student, but a man responsible for supporting his family, and with an enormous burden on my shoulders. My parents, who didn’t even come to the wedding, made any ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/30.03.2007/seventh-chapter/ Father Giancarlo Fontana, 72 Of course I was surprised when the couple, both of them much too young, came to the church to arrange the wedding ceremony. I hardly knew Lukás Jessen-Petersen, but that same day, I learned that his family – obscure aristocrats from Denmark – were totally opposed to ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/26.03.2007/sixth-chapter/ Lukás Jessen-Petersen, 32, engineer, ex-husband When I first met Athena, she already knew that she was adopted. She was just nineteen and about to have a stand-up fight with a fellow student in the university cafeteria because the fellow student, assuming Athena to be English (white skin, straight hair, eyes that ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/21.03.2007/fifth-chapter/ Lella Zainab, 64, numerologist Athena? What an interesting name! Let’s see…her Maximum number is nine. Optimistic, sociable, likely to be noticed in a crowd. People might go to her in search of understanding, compassion, generosity, and for precisely that reason, she should be careful, because that tendency to popularity could go ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/15.03.2007/fourth-chapter/ Deidre O’Neill, 37, doctor, known as Edda If a man we don’t know phones us up one day and talks a little, makes no suggestions, says nothing special, but nevertheless pays us the kind of attention we rarely receive, we’re quite capable of going to bed with him that same night, ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/07.03.2007/third-chapter/ Andrea McCain, 32, actress ‘No one can manipulate anyone else. In any relationship, both parties know what they’re doing, even if one of them complains later on that they were used.’ That’s what Athena used to say, but she herself behaved quite differently, because she used and manipulated me with no consideration ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/28.02.2007/second-chapter/ Before these statements left my desk and followed the fate I eventually chose for them, I considered using them as the basis for a traditional, painstakingly researched biography, recounting a true story. And so I read various biographies, thinking this would help me, only to realise that the biographer’s view ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/21.02.2007/first-chapter/ Book Description 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 ... http://en.paulocoelhoblog.com/witch-of-portobello/13.02.2007/qa/