Yasmin Zaher is a Palestinian w riter and journalist. She got her B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University and an MFA in Creative W riting at The New School, w here she w as advised by Katie Kitamura. She lives in Paris.
<p>A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian w oman'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 w ealthy Palestinian w oman w ith impeccable style and </p><p>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.</p><p>In New York, she strives to put dow n roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, w here her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless sw indler, and the tw o participate in a pyramid scheme reselling Birkin bags. </p><p>But America is stifling her - her w ilfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied w ith purity, cleanliness and self-image, all w hile draw ing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge w ith her material and existential statelessness and the narrator unravels spectacularly.</p><p>In enthralling, sensory prose, The Coin explores nature and civilisation, beauty and justice, class and belonging - all w hile resisting easy moralising. Provocative, wry and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.</p>
