The Coin

Zaher, Yasmin

ISBN 10: 1646222768 / ISBN 13: 9781646222766

Published by Catapult, 2025

Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00104509165

Synopsis:

Winner of the Swansea Dylan Thomas Prize
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind

The Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory, and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start.

In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in an intercontinental scheme reselling Birkin bags.

But America is stifling her--her willfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness, and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.

"With biting humor and incisive prose" (Time), The Coin explores nature and civilization, beauty and justice, class and belonging--all while resisting easy moralizing. "Page-turning and delightful" (People), "sharp and disarming" (The Washington Post), "stunning and surreal" (Los Angeles Times), The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.

About the Author: Yasmin Zaher is a Palestinian journalist and writer born in 1991 in Jerusalem. The Coin is her first novel.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Coin
Publisher: Catapult
Publication Date: 2025
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good