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

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

Yasmin Zaher’s remarkable novel The Coin has won the 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 appr…

Yasmin Zaher wins Dylan Thomas prize with her novel "The Coin" - 3 Quarks Daily

Ella Creamer in The Guardian: A novel about a Palestinian woman who participates in a pyramid scheme reselling Birkin bags has won this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize. Palestinian journalist Yasmin Zaher took home the £20,000 prize – awarded to writers aged 39 or under in honour of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who died at that age – for her debut novel The Coin. She was announced as the winner at a ceremony in Swansea, Thomas’s bir…