Henry Abbott

On October 3, the Palestine Book Club had its first meeting of the year to discuss Yasmin Zaher’s novel “The Coin.” The group brought together members of local communities, including Bowdoin students, professors and even Colby College Associate Professor of English Sarah Braunstein.

“The Coin” follows an unnamed Palestinian woman who moves to New York City and teaches middle schoolers while exploring themes of identity, consumerism and displacement. Dichotomies including that of dirt and cleanliness are mentioned consistently throughout the novel, exemplifying how the character grapples with her own life experiences and identities.

Like many of the works the club has looked at, “The Coin” offers creative insight into emotions and experiences common in the Palestinian diaspora. But unlike other books that the club has discussed in the past, there is no comprehensive description of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

“I think there seems to be at this moment a hunger for fiction that is anthropological, like, ‘This book will help me understand what’s happening in the West Bank,’” Assistant Professor of English Zahir Janmohamed, who leads the book club, said. “That’s very powerful, and that’s very useful,… but this [novel] doesn’t do any of that, which I really appreciate.”

The connection to Palestine, according to Janmohamed, is illustrated in a more literary manner than a political one, through the symbolism and writing style of the book.

“That’s what I find so compelling about this book, because I think almost every paragraph is about Palestine as a subtext, but it’s only brought up five or six times,” Janmohamed said.

Janmohammed liked that connecting the book to current events sometimes required more thought.

“It challenged us to think about what a Palestinian book is and if a book has to be explicitly ‘about the conflict’ to be about the conflict,” Janmohamed said.

In some ways, Zaher’s writing style and chaotic narration mirror the uncertain and tragic news related to Palestine.

“[The book] matches my mood a lot these days, because it feels like it’s very purposefully unsettling, like [the main character] is trying to unsettle you. She’s trying to throw too much stuff at you,” Postdoctoral Fellow in Arabic Paige Milligan said. “She has that unreliable narrator quality to her as well, which also feels like a piece with watching the news.”

The shock value and subject matter of the book also seem to reflect current events.

“What I found so interesting about this book is that the whole book is so ridiculous, but also what’s happening is so ridiculous, too,” Janmohamed said. “I found that this is almost like the perfect book in concert with what’s happening right now.”

As a creative writing professor, Braunstein was able to offer a different literary perspective on the novel, drawing on connections between the symbolism in this novel and other Palestinian narratives, such as Adania Shibli’s “Minor Detail,” which the book club read last spring.

“That’s one of the highlights, when we have Colby faculty here,” Janmohamed said. “Intellectually, it’s so lovely to meet people in different disciplines and colleges.”

The Palestine Book Club will continue to integrate different aspects of the community and discuss other works of fiction as the year progresses. At its November meeting, the club will discuss Palestinian American Noor Hindi’s poetry collection entitled “Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.”