The Spy: A novel

Paulo Coelho

Nov 2016 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

In his new novel, Paulo Coelho, bestselling author of The Alchemist and Adultery, brings to life one of history's most enigmatic women: Mata Hari. 

HER ONLY CRIME WAS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN
 
When Mata Hari arrived in Paris she was penniless.  Within months she was the most celebrated woman in the city.
 
As a dancer, she shocked and delighted audiences; as a courtesan, she bewitched the era’s richest and most powerful men.
 
But as paranoia consumed a country at war, Mata Hari’s lifestyle brought her under suspicion. In 1917, she was arrested in her hotel room on the Champs Elysees, and accused of espionage.
 
Told in Mata Hari’s voice through her final letter, The Spy is the unforgettable story of a woman who dared to defy convention and who paid the ultimate price.

Ratings and reviews

This novel, written from multiple first-person perspectives, provides unique insights into the execution of Mata Hari for espionage as a double agent during World War I. Coelho portrays Mata Hari as a misunderstood figure--a lone woman simply trying to make her way any way she could in a man's world made more complicated by war, convicted on flimsy, circumstantial evidence at best or outright sacrificed on the altar of morale, propaganda and wartime expediency, hysteria and fervor at worst. While the narrative meanders at times and is a bit difficult to follow, the historical facts of the case are so well known that the thread of the story can be picked up fairly easily. Further, a somewhat disordered retelling of events lends authenticity to the story since our narrators are reflecting on their actions the night before Mata Hari's execution when their emotional states would be extremely fragile. The Spy is a very quick and interesting read about one of history's most reviled, but fascinating figures.

I want to know how's Mata Hari end up on Coelho's hand 😊

Not as good as the others.,but OK

About the author

PAULO COELHO is the author of many international best sellers, including The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes, The Pilgrimage, The Fifth Mountain, and Adultery, among others. He has been a member of the Academy of Letters of Brazil since 2002 and in 2007 was named a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations. In 2003, he received the Guinness World Record for most translations of a single title (The Alchemist) signed by the author in one sitting and several years later, in 2009, he received a new Guinness World Record for most translated author for the same book (also for The Alchemist).
 
Paulo Coelho’s books have been translated into 88 languages and have sold more than 320 million copies in more than 170 countries. His novel, The Alchemist, one of the most influential books of all time, has sold more than 85 million copies and has been cited as an inspiration by people as diverse as Malala Yousafzai and Pharrell Williams. He has received numerous prestigious international awards, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, to name a few.
 
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