A Coin in Nine Hands - Softcover

Yourcenar, Professor Marguerite

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374519536 ISBN 13: 9780374519537

Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl, 1986

Synopsis

During the space of a day in Rome in 1933, a ten-lira coin passes through the hands of nine people-including an aging artist, a prostitute, and a would-be assassin of Mussolini. The coin becomes the symbol of contact between human beings, each lost in private passions and nearly impenetrable solitude.

"A Coin in Nine Hands has . . . passages that move close to poetry and a story that belongs in both literature and history."-Doris Grumbach, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"What lingers at the end of A Coin in Nine Hands is the shadowiness and puppetlike vagueness of the Dictator, and the compelling specificity of the so-called 'common people' revolving all around him."-Anne Tyler, The New Republic

"Within a few pages we have met half the major characters in this haunting, brilliantly constructed novel. . . . The studied perfection, the structural intricacy and brevity remind one of Camus. Yet by comparison, Yourcenar's prose is lavish, emotional and imagistic."-Cynthia King, Houston Post

"Transcends its specific time and place to become a portrait of vividly delineated characters caught in the vise of a tragically familiar political situation."-Publisher's Weekly

Best known as the author of Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-87) achieved countless literary honors and was the first woman ever elected to the Académie Française.

About this title

About the Author:

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-87) wrote plays, stories, poems, and novels, including the notable Memoirs of Hadrian. She was the first woman to be elected to the Academie Francaise.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0374519536
• ISBN 13: 9780374519537
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184