The winner stands alone
By: Paulo Coelho ; translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
Contributors: Costa, Margaret Jull
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 343
ISBN-13: 9780061750441; 9780061776335
Subjects: Divorced people; Russians; Film festivals; Fiction; Cannes Film Festival; Motion picture industry
Work titles: Vencedor está só
Description: From the Publisher: The beloved, bestselling international author of The Alchemist returns with another haunting novel-a thrilling journey into our constant fascination with the worlds of fame, fortune, and celebrity.  A profound meditation on personal power and innocent dreams that are manipulated or undone by success, The Winner Stands Alone is set in the exciting worlds of fashion and cinema.  Taking place over the course of twenty-four hours during the Cannes Film Festival, it is the story of Igor, a successful, driven Russian entrepreneur who will go to the darkest lengths to reclaim a lost love-his ex-wife, Ewa.  Believing that his life with Ewa was divinely ordained, Igor once told her that he would destroy whole worlds to get her back.  The conflict between an individual evil force and society emerges, and as the novel unfolds, morality is derailed.  Meet the players and poseurs behind the scenes at Cannes-the "Superclass" of producers, actors, designers, and supermodels, as well as the aspiring starlets, has-been stars, and jaded hangers-on.  Adroitly interweaving the characters' stories, Paulo Coelho uses his twelfth novel to paint an engrossing picture of a world overrun by glamour and excess, and shows us the possibly dire consequences of our obsession with fame.