硬币：与亚斯明扎德的对话

亚斯明·扎德 (Yasmin Zader) 的惊人处女作《硬币》(The Coin) 中的无名旁白是凶猛、反复无常、不屑一顾、不知不觉地有趣的。

Yasmin Zader’s debut novel, The Coin, follows an unnamed narrator as she grapples with her identity, relationships, and experiences in New York City and Paris. The novel explores themes of belonging, self-discovery, and the complexities of navigating different cultures. In an interview with Jezebel, Zader discusses the development of her protagonist, the role of Palestine in the story, and the secrets she keeps as a writer.

亚斯明·扎德的处女作《硬币》讲述了一位不知名的叙述者在纽约和巴黎与自己的身份、人际关系和经历作斗争的故事。小说探讨了归属感、自我发现以及驾驭不同文化的复杂性等主题。在接受耶洗别采访时，扎德讨论了主角的发展、巴勒斯坦在故事中的角色，以及她作为作家所保守的秘密。

Jezebel: Tell me about developing this very compelling main character. She’s haughty and manipulative, but also tender with her students. How did you layer this complex person?

耶洗别：告诉我如何开发这个非常引人注目的主角。她傲慢且控制欲强，但对学生也很温柔。你是如何对这个复杂的人进行分层的？

Yasmin Zader: I started by writing without inhibitions. The first layer was probably the chaotic layer—where things don’t really make sense, the strange connections between things that are based on very loose logic, the impulsive side of her, the improper side of her. As the story developed, I started to understand that Palestine is also a part of it, which wasn’t clear to me in the first few weeks or months of writing it. I started to round out the character in other places, maybe bring a little bit more compassion. But the first and most important layer for me was a character who was a little bit irrational.

Yasmin Zader：我从无拘无束地写作开始。第一层可能是混乱层——那里的事物没有真正的意义，事物之间基于非常松散的逻辑的奇怪联系，她冲动的一面，她不正当的一面。随着故事的发展，我开始明白巴勒斯坦也是故事的一部分，但在写作的最初几周或几个月里，我并不清楚这一点。我开始在其他地方完善这个角色，也许会带来更多的同情心。但对我来说，第一层也是最重要的一层是一个有点不理性的角色。

I had tried writing two novels before, and it was too structured and boring. This novel I wrote just to see what I had inside. The way I wrote you could classify as binge writing: I wrote for 10 hours straight once a week. It took only a couple of months to finish the first draft. But then the first draft was so all-over-the-place that it took me six years to edit something that somebody would want to publish.

我以前曾尝试写过两本小说，但结构太严密，而且很无聊。我写这本小说只是为了看看我里面有什么。我的写作方式你可以归类为狂写：我每周一次连续写10个小时。仅用了几个月的时间就完成了初稿。但初稿实在是太杂乱了，我花了六年时间才编辑出有人想要发表的东西。

There’s an incredible pivot between the character’s “CVS retreats”—an extreme exhibition of control—to this complete deregulation at the end. How did that shift unspool?

在角色的“CVS 撤退”（一种极端的控制表现）和最后的完全放松管制之间存在着令人难以置信的转折。这种转变是如何展开的？

I think the trigger for the letting go at the end was when she goes upstate, and she has this experience with nature. The climax of the book, the ending of the book, is really about refining the connection with nature, or looking for a connection with the animal self, something that is very forgotten in our era, especially when you live in a big city. When I was writing it, I had been living in New York for around two years. I was walking on the street one day in Greenwich Village and I stumbled; to keep myself from falling, I held onto a tree. I realized that I hadn’t touched a tree in months, if not in years. It was a very disturbing moment.

我认为最终放手的触发因素是当她去北部时，她有这种与大自然的经历。这本书的高潮，这本书的结尾，实际上是关于提炼与自然的联系，或者寻找与动物自我的联系，这是我们这个时代被遗忘的东西，尤其是当你生活在大城市时。当我写这篇文章时，我已经在纽约生活了大约两年。有一天，我走在格林威治村的街上，绊倒了。为了防止自己跌倒，我扶住了一棵树。我意识到我已经好几个月甚至好几年没有碰过树了。这是一个非常令人不安的时刻。

I love the narrator’s criticisms of America. One of my favorite lines is, “I was scared of American culture. When I say that, I don’t mean the right to bear arms, I mean wedding dresses and obesity.”

我喜欢叙述者对美国的批评。我最喜欢的台词之一是：“我害怕美国文化。当我这么说时，我指的不是携带武器的权利，而是婚纱和肥胖。”

I knew you were going to pick that!

我就知道你会选择那个！

Then there’s the plot of selling Hermès bags to Americans because they are too vulgar to access them directly—the narrator can “sell them at a premium to the trashy and unworthy.” There’s a lot of side eyeing.

然后是把爱马仕包卖给美国人的情节，因为它们太粗俗，无法直接接触——叙述者可以“高价卖给垃圾和不值得的人”。有很多侧面的目光。

Yeah, that’s my outsider look into America. It’s the things that I saw that American friends didn’t necessarily see, because they were just so used to them. I landed in New York two days ago, and driving from Newark into the city, there are huge billboards, one after the other, and it’s all for plastic surgery and lawyers. Crazy! I had a tough time, culturally, living here in New York, and in the end I left for that reason. There was no click. Probably to the great disappointment of generations of my family who tried to move here, or wanted to move here…

是的，这就是我对美国的局外人的看法。这是我看到的美国朋友不一定看到的东西，因为他们已经习惯了。两天前我抵达纽约，从纽瓦克开车进城，巨大的广告牌，一个接一个，都是整形手术和律师的。疯狂的！我在纽约的生活在文化上经历了一段艰难的时期，最终我因为这个原因离开了。没有咔嗒声。可能让我家族中几代试图搬到这里或想搬到这里的人感到非常失望……

The reality of Palestine adds a devastating political layer. There’s this part where the narrator fights with this guy she’s seeing, Trenchcoat, and he says, why don’t you go back to where you came from? And there’s nowhere to go, which is upsetting to her, and is also upsetting for the reader. Her frustrations with New York can’t lead back towards any path tied to her roots. Did that political angle feel urgent to you?

巴勒斯坦的现实增加了毁灭性的政治层面。在这一部分中，叙述者与她所见到的风衣人打架，他说，你为什么不回到你来的地方呢？无处可去，这让她不安，也让读者不安。她对纽约的挫败感无法让她回到任何与她的根源相关的道路。你觉得这种政治角度紧迫吗？

That came in much later stages. I started to see connections, I started to understand my own work, and only then did I understand: Oh, OK, this is a person who is dispossessed. I didn’t know that at first. I don’t even know if I know that I’m a dispossessed person—I’m not sure I would even admit that.

那是在很晚的阶段才发生的。我开始看到联系，我开始了解自己的工作，这时我才明白：哦，好吧，这是一个被剥夺的人。我一开始并不知道这一点。我什至不知道我是否知道我是一个被剥夺了的人——我什至不确定我是否会承认这一点。

My background and Palestine kept interfering into the book. There was a moment in the editing where I was like, “I could just remove Palestine from this entire book; it wouldn’t cut so much out.” You know, not have to pay my dues. But it was impossible. It was such a backbone of the book that it would not exist without it.

我的背景和巴勒斯坦不断干扰这本书。在编辑过程中，有一刻我想，“我可以把巴勒斯坦从整本书中删除；它不会削减那么多。”你知道，不必支付我的会费。但这是不可能的。它是这本书的支柱，没有它它就不会存在。

While

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