Preview
  • The Coin

  • A Novel
  • By: Yasmin Zaher
  • Narrated by: Sarah Agha
  • Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (14 ratings)

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The Coin

By: Yasmin Zaher
Narrated by: Sarah Agha
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Publisher's summary

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.

In enthralling, sensory prose, The Coin explores nature and civilization, beauty and justice, class and belonging—all while resisting easy moralizing. Provocative, wry, and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major literary voice.

©2024 Yasmin Zaher. (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
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Critic reviews

"A hypnotic portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown."—Shannon Carlin, Time

"The Coin, the Palestinian journalist Zaher’s debut—which is, yes, about a woman unraveling in New York City—feels arrestingly new . . . Her narration is spiky and honest, her choices gleefully, consciously bad. The pleasure she takes in making those decisions and then recounting them is what makes The Coin both unusual and compelling. Our protagonist denies herself nothing she wants, and she denies her audience no detail. The combination renders the book tough to put down."—Lily Meyer, The Atlantic

"[An] unusual, powerful novel . . . Zaher captures the suffocating pain of isolation and loneliness in a manner that feels chillingly universal."—Connie Ogle, The Star Tribune

What listeners say about The Coin

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Interview of author on podcast piqued interest

After a stimulating intro by author on a podcast, I found the book excruciatingly boring. After less than an hour I was really done. Stylistically bad, character development bad .

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Excellent narration

Overall disappointing, Seemed to have so much potential for a compelling story, so many pearls that could have been more developed, only to have it fizzle out each time. Protagonist was unappealing and made even more so by pointless vulgarity. Would definitely not use an Audible credit for this, wish I could get my credit back!

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