波特贝罗女巫 (2006)

《波特贝罗女巫》是巴西作家保罗·科尔贺2006年出版的作品(中文版于2008年出版)，故事是描述一个生于外凡尼亚的吉普赛人女儿的故事，她一出生就遭到弃养，不久后被一对黎巴嫩夫妻领养。

写作风格

故事以主角雅典娜的死亡作为开端，并由各个认识她的人物，由不同的角度来回忆他们所知道的雅典娜。包括领养她的母亲、研究吸血鬼传说的记者，神父、她的书法老师和一位演员等人。每个人用他们的角度来描述他们的所看见的、所经历的印象，并用他们所相信的事物和恐惧来诠释雅典娜这个人。

剧情

在故事的一开始，女主角雅典娜已经死了，她的死支持了这本书进行下去。小女孩莎琳·卡利为自己另外取名为雅典娜，当她还是小女孩时，她展现了强烈的宗教倾向，并宣称自己能看到天使和圣灵，这个情形让她的父母非常忧心。

她长大后，她有平顺的人生，但她的心中总觉得不踏实。所以她开始透过不同的经验，去追寻“我是谁？”的答案。在她追寻的经过中，她开启了她的心灵，这也使她成为伦敦一位争议性人物。

波特贝罗的女巫知道万事万物，但是去了解生命意义的方法，是成为一个导师，从他的学生身上习得。一位导师只能让我们意识到我们的能力，但是何处是正确的道路，则是学生要自己去寻找的。有许多方法可以借由接近大地之母，感受到幸福。

部落格

在此书的专属部落格上，可以读到此书三分之一的内容(12种语言，无中文)，保罗·科尔贺在部落格上说，已读过此书的读者可在部落格上评论此书，他认为这样直接的交流，对于文学是有助益的。

The Witch of Portobello (Portuguese: A Bruxa de Portobello) is a fiction work by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho published in 2006, about a woman born in Transylvania to a Romani mother in a gypsy tribe out of wedlock. The central character is abandoned by her birth mother because the father was a foreigner (gadje) and later adopted by a wealthy Lebanese couple.

Theme

In this book, Coelho works with the return to the goddess religion, the interpretation of love, and the feminine part of the Divine within the theme of searching for one’s true self and opening to the energies of the world. The question central to the story is "How do we find the courage to be true to ourselves - even if we are unsure of who we are?"

The work also expounds a selection of philosophies, which bear a certain degree of similarity to Coelho's teachings from previous novels and carry the characteristic imprint of his own ideas, as well as a citation regarding the ephemeral nature of desires, which appears in most of Coelho's novels.

The writer elucidates the opinion that the Church has deviated by its stringent rules to the point where it no longer serves Jesus Christ, or as put in his words in one of the interviews: "It's a very long time since they've allowed me in there [the Church]".

Plot

As the book begins, Athena is dead. How she ended up that way creates the intrigue sustaining the book. The child, Sherine Khalil renames herself Athena after her uncle was discussing with her mother on how her real name will betray her origins and something like Athena gave nothing away. As a child, she shows a strong religious vocation and reports seeing angels and saints, which both impresses and worries her parents.

She goes into a London University to pursue Engineering at the age of 19, but it's not what her heart wanted. One day she just decides that she wanted to drop out of college, get married and have a baby. Here, the author mentions that this might be due to the fact that she was abandoned herself and wants to give all that love she could to her child which she didn't receive from her birth mother. Two years later, her marriage falls apart because they are facing too many problems due to their young age and lack of money or mostly because he felt that she loved only the child and used him to get what she wanted. A very interesting quote she uses is "From Ancient Greece on, the people who returned from battle were either dead on their shields or stronger, despite or because of their scars. It's better that way: I've lived on a battlefield since I was born, but I'm still alive and I don't need anyone to protect me."

She grows into a woman in search of answers to many questions that arise within a person. She had a life which many felt was content because she had a child of her own, money, and friends; everything but her mind was at peace, so she searches for the answer to the classical question of "Who am I?" through many experiences. In her quest, she opens her heart to intoxicating powers of mother and becomes a controversial spiritual leader in London.