今年十月，家庭财富和阴谋出现在日本和巴勒斯坦小说中

追踪世代并在此过程中揭示惊人的秘密。这些不是鬼故事，但它们最终可能仍然困扰着你。

Two new novels explore familial wealth and intrigue.

两部新小说探讨了家庭财富和阴谋。

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》讲述了 1972 年 12 岁的智子在日本沿海姨妈家度过的时光。她姨妈的丈夫有一半德国血统，智子对她有一半或四分之一亚洲血统的亲戚的外表很着迷。她注意到他们的栗色头发、叔叔眼睛周围“深深的凹陷”，以及米娜鼻梁上投下的“丰富的阴影”。智子和与她同住的家人对自己的国家怀有明显的自豪感，但过去的欧洲辉煌似乎对他们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.”

亚斯明·扎赫 (Yasmin Zaher) 的《硬币》讲述了一位超级富有的巴勒斯坦妇女搬到纽约市，成为一所男子学校的老师的故事。令人遗憾的是，她通过关系获得这份工作，但她的资格严重不足，而且事实证明她是一位鲁莽的教育家——她把学生在慈善烘焙义卖中筹集的钱据为己有，并定期举办她所谓的“免费课程”，让学生们坐在一起无所事事。但最重要的是，叙述者对清洁很着迷。 “在纽约，我看到了我见过的最肮脏的人，”她解释道，“我来自巴勒斯坦……我生活中的女性非常重视保持清洁，也许是因为她们在自己的生活中几乎无法控制其他事情。”生活”。

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.

她详细描述了她在城市中随处可见的污垢，每周花几个小时进行她所谓的“CVS 静修”，以清除体内积聚的污垢。最终，她的厌恶导致她放弃了博柏利风衣，几周后，她遇到了一名穿着这件夹克的无家可归的男子，结果却陷入了跨国奢侈品包转售计划中。