A Coin In Nine Hands
by Marguerite Yourcenar
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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 Times Book Review "What lingers at show more 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. show lessTags
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Author Information
112+ Works 14,506 Members
A French novelist, playwright, and essayist born in Belgium, Marguerite Yourcenar was a resident of the United States for many years, living in isolation on a small island off the coast of Maine. Educated at home by wealthy and cultured parents, she had a strong humanistic background, translating the ancient Greek poet Pindar and the poems of the show more modern Greek Constantine Cavafy. She has translated American Negro spirituals and works of Virginia Woolf (see Vol. 1) and Henry James (see Vol. 1). Her novels include Alexis (1929) and Coup de Grace (1939). A collection of poems, Fires, was published in 1936. Yourcenar is particularly known for Hadrian's Memoirs (1951), a philosophical meditation in the form of a fictional autobiography of the second-century Roman emperor. In Germaine Bree's judgment, "With great erudition and great psychological insight, Marguerite Yourcenar constructed a body of work that is a meditation on the destiny of mankind." In 1981, she became the first woman ever elected to the French Academy. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- A Coin In Nine Hands
- Original title
- Denier du rêve
- Original publication date
- 1934
- Important places
- Roma
- Epigraph
- C'est priser sa vie justement ce qu'elle est, de l'abondonner pour un songe. - Montaigne, liv. III, chap. IV.
- First words
- Paolo Farina était un provincial encore jeune, suffisamment riche, ausi honnête qu'on peut l'attendre d'un homme vivant dans l'intimité de la Loi, assez aimé dans sa petite bourgade toscane pour que son malheur même ne l... (show all)e fît pas mépriser.
- Quotations
- The only difference between this movie and life was that here the public knew it was being deceived.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Une lampeé de plus, et ses yeux se fermèrent comme si la nuit, malgré tout, valait mieux que le spectacle d'une salle d'auberge; le point d'appui du mur manqua au dossier de sa chaise; il roula sur le sol sans s'apercevoir qu'il tombait, et il fut heureux comme un mort.
- Original language
- French
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 843.912 — Literature & rhetoric French & related literatures French fiction 1900- 20th Century 1900-1945
- LCC
- PQ2649 .O8 .D413 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 1900-1960
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 46
- Popularity
- 646,056
- Rating
- (3.85)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, French, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
