今年十月，家庭財富和陰謀出現在日本和巴勒斯坦小說中

追蹤世代並在此過程中揭示驚人的秘密。這些不是鬼故事，但它們最終可能仍然困擾著你。

Two new novels explore familial wealth and intrigue.

兩部新小說探討了家庭財富和陰謀。

Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa follows 12-year-old Tomoko as she spends a year at her aunt's home in coastal Japan in 1972. Her aunt's husband is half German, and Tomoko is fascinated by her half- and quarter-Asian relatives' looks. She notes their chestnut hair, “deep recesses” around her uncle's eyes, and a “rich shadow” cast by the bridge of Mina’s nose. Tomoko and the family she is living with have clear pride in their country, but bygone European grandeur seems to hold a certain draw for all of them.

小川洋子的《米娜的火柴盒》講述了1972 年12 歲的智子在日本沿海姨媽家度過的時光。親戚的外表很著迷。她注意到他們的栗色頭髮、叔叔眼睛周圍“深深的凹陷”，以及米娜鼻樑上投下的“豐富的陰影”。智子和與她同住的家人對自己的國家懷有明顯的自豪感，但過去的歐洲輝煌似乎對他們所有人都有一定的吸引力。

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher follows an ultrawealthy Palestinian woman who moves to New York City to become a teacher at an all-boys school. She is woefully underqualified for the job, having obtained it via connections, and proves a reckless educator—pocketing money students raised at a charity bake sale and regularly holding what she calls a “free class,” where students sit around and do nothing. But above all, the narrator is obsessed with cleanliness. “In New York I saw the dirtiest people I had ever seen,” she explains, “I came from Palestine … and the women in my life placed a lot of importance on being clean, perhaps because there was little else they could control in their lives.”

亞斯明·扎赫 (Yasmin Zaher) 的《硬幣》講述了一位超級富有的巴勒斯坦婦女搬到紐約市，成為一所男子學校的老師的故事。令人遺憾的是，她透過關係獲得這份工作，但她的資格嚴重不足，而且事實證明她是一位魯莽的教育家——她把學生在慈善烘焙義賣中籌集的錢據為己有，並定期舉辦她所謂的“免費課程”，讓學生們坐在一起無所事事。但最重要的是，敘述者對清潔很著迷。 「在紐約，我看到了我見過的最骯髒的人，」她解釋道，「我來自巴勒斯坦……我生活中的女性非常重視保持清潔，也許是因為她們在自己的生活中幾乎無法控制其他事情。

She details the grime she sees everywhere in the city, devoting hours each week to what she calls a “CVS Retreat” to rid her body of the dirt it has amassed. Eventually, her disgust leads her to abandon her Burberry trench coat, only to become ensnared in a multinational luxury bag reselling scheme after she encounters an unhoused man wearing the jacket weeks later.

她詳細描述了這座城市隨處可見的污垢，每週花幾個小時進行她所謂的“CVS 靜修”，以清除體內積聚的污垢。最終，她的厭惡導致她放棄了博柏利風衣，幾週後，她遇到了一名穿著這件夾克的無家可歸的男子，結果卻陷入了跨國奢侈品包轉售計劃中。