A Coin in Nine Hands A Novel |
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Author:
| Yourcenar, Marguerite |
Translator:
| Katz, Dori |
ISBN: | 978-0-226-96527-7 |
Publication Date: | Nov 1994 |
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $28.00 |
Book Description:
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During the space of a day in Rome in 1933, a ten-lira coin passes through the hands of nine people--including an aging artist, a prostitute, and a would-be assassin of Mussolini. The coin becomes the symbol of contact between human beings, each lost in private passions and nearly impenetrable solitude. "
A Coin in Nine Hands has . . . passages that move close to poetry and a story that belongs in both literature and history."--Doris Grumbach,
Los Angeles...
More DescriptionDuring the space of a day in Rome in 1933, a ten-lira coin passes through the hands of nine people--including an aging artist, a prostitute, and a would-be assassin of Mussolini. The coin becomes the symbol of contact between human beings, each lost in private passions and nearly impenetrable solitude.
"A Coin in Nine Hands has . . . passages that move close to poetry and a story that belongs in both literature and history."--Doris Grumbach, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"What lingers at the end of A Coin in Nine Hands is the shadowiness and puppetlike vagueness of the Dictator, and the compelling specificity of the so-called 'common people' revolving all around him."--Anne Tyler, The New Republic
"Within a few pages we have met half the major characters in this haunting, brilliantly constructed novel. . . . The studied perfection, the structural intricacy and brevity remind one of Camus. Yet by comparison, Yourcenar's prose is lavish, emotional and imagistic."--Cynthia King, Houston Post
"Transcends its specific time and place to become a portrait of vividly delineated characters caught in the vise of a tragically familiar political situation."--Publisher's Weekly
Best known as the author of Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-87) achieved countless literary honors and was the first woman ever elected to the Académie Française.