"The Transmutation of Gold into Paper and Plastic" is one of the early chapters of The Sign of Jonah, a serial novel of sin and redemption set on the remote island of Bato in the Philippines. Here we meet Collins, a retired mining engineer from Perth, who comes to the island by way of Papua New Guinea and Manila.
While "The Transmutation of Gold into Paper and Plastic" introduces one of the main characters and the central theme of a much longer work, it is also a stand-alone short story.
