The Winner Stands Alone

The Winner Stands Alone is a novel by Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, first published in 2008 under the Portuguese title O Vencedor está Só.

The story is set at the Cannes Film Festival and roughly based upon the growing rise of what the author calls The Superclass.^[1] While the reviewer in the Financial Times admitted that the book's background was well researched, he complained that its plotting was weak and the writing over-indulgent: "Coelho alights on all the obvious clichés…and repeats them at inordinate length".^[2]

The loosely connected plot tells the story of several individuals: Igor, a psychopathic Russian mobile phone mogul; Ewa, formerly Igor's wife but now married to Hamid, a Middle Eastern fashion magnate; Jasmine, an African woman on the brink of a successful modeling career; American actress Gabriela, eager to land a leading film role; and an ambitious criminal detective, hoping to resolve the case of his life. The tale narrates the tension within and between the characters in a 24-hour period.