The Coin by Palestinian writer Yasmin Zaher wins the 20th Dylan Thomas Prize – an expert from the judging panel explains why

By Daniel G. Williams, Professor of English Literature, Swansea University

Yasmin Zaher’s remarkable novel The Coin has won the 20th International Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize for writers under the age of 40.

This is not a story that begins at the beginning. Instead, its narrator starts with dirt and an obsession with cleanliness, but suggests later that the coin of the title – an Israeli shekel that she accidentally swallowed on a family road trip in which her parents were killed in a car crash – would have been an equally appropriate place to begin.

Long forgotten,…

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