THE COIN, by Yasmin ZaherHalfway through Yasmin Zaher’s debut novel, “The Coin,” the unnamed narrator, a Palestinian schoolteacher in New York City, arrives at the Hermès flagship store on Paris’s Rue Saint-Honoré to buy a Birkin.
“Every year, regardless of poverty, war or famine, the price of the Birkin bag increases,” she explains.
(He, in turn, left her millions of dollars that she cannot access except by allowance from her patronizing older brother.)
Or with her own rootlessness, her parentless exile from a place in which her family had already been exiled for generations?
Zaher’s smart, sneering novel of capital and its consequences answers: Everything.
Persons:
Yasmin Zaher Halfway, Yasmin Zaher’s, “, Birkin, Hermès, grifter, Robin Hood, Muhammad
Organizations:
Rue Saint
Locations:
Palestinian, New York City, Palestine