{"product_id":"the-parcel-isbn-9780345816757","title":"The Parcel","description":"\u003cb\u003eFINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION • FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS’ TRUST FICTION PRIZE • A \u003ci\u003eGLOBE AND MAIL\u003c\/i\u003e BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • This powerful work about a transgender sex worker in the red-light district of Bombay who is given an unexpected task, is a gripping literary page-turner—difficult and moving, surprising and tender.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e's astonishing heart, soul and unforgettable voice is Madhu--born a boy, but a eunuch by choice--who has spent most of her life in a close-knit clan of transgender sex workers in Kamathipura, the notorious red-light district of Bombay. Madhu identifies herself as a \"hijra\"--a person belonging to the third sex, neither here nor there, man nor woman. Now, at 40, she has moved away from prostitution, her trade since her teens, and is forced to beg to support the charismatic head of the hijra clan, Gurumai. One day Madhu receives a call from Padma Madam, the most feared brothel owner in the district: a \"parcel\" has arrived--a young girl from the provinces, betrayed and trafficked by her aunt--and Madhu must prepare it for its fate. Despite Madhu's reluctance, she is forced to take the job by Gurumai. As Madhu's emotions spiral out of control, her past comes back to haunt her, threatening to unravel a lifetime's work and identity.\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eGLOBE AND MAIL\u003c\/i\u003e BEST BOOK\u003cbr\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE DSC PRIZE FOR SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFINALIST FOR THE ETHEL WILSON FICTION PRIZE (BC BOOK AWARDS)\u003cbr\u003eFINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As engrossing as any thriller, Anosh Irani’s novel offers readers so much more. An aggregate of storytelling accomplishments, \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e captivates with its vividly rendered characters. . . . Deeply affecting.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Quill and Quire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A magnificent novel with powerfully imagined characters . . . bold, bawdy, tender, funny, sorrowful, all that life is made up of.” —Anita Rau Badami, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hero's Walk\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Part of the way this excellent book heals such a sprawling, horrifying reality is with beauty. . . .” —\u003ci\u003eThe Globe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Set amid the raucous swirl of Bombay’s Kamathipura Red Light District, \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e is a searing indictment of the sex trafficking industry and a compassionate portrait of a troubled but resilient community. In Madhu, the transgender, retired prostitute at the heart of the novel, Anosh Irani has created a powerful yet flawed character to steward the reader through difficult, often disturbing material. Her struggles—with her past, with the legacy she might leave behind—are rendered with honesty and grace. Harrowing, enraging, unexpectedly humorous, and also profoundly sad, \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e is a haunting work of fiction that illuminates the ways in which history, both political and personal, pervades the present day.\" —2016 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury Lauren B. Davis, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Irani takes readers into the depths of Mumbai’s teeming Kamathipura district, whose economy depends on prostitution bordering on slavery. The story centres on eunuch and former sex worker Madhu—now a beggar and sometime aid to a powerful madam—who is called on to groom a pre-teen Nepalese girl for work in the brothel. Sounds grim, but Irani’s ear is attuned to the raucous humour of the sex workers as they do what they can to maintain their dignity. A harsh dose of reality administered with wit and clarity.” —\u003ci\u003eNOW\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e takes on weighty, difficult content involving extensive research, and including fascinating, complicated characters.” —CBC Radio\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A]rresting. . . . A searing, disturbing, and intimate portrait of Kamathipura . . . his novel exposes a heartbreaking reality.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Vancouver Sun\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Irani brings to light a fascinating array of characters.” —\u003ci\u003eToronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e showcases the perceptive acid-streaked sensibility that distinguishes Irani’s novels and plays. . . . As in Irani’s novel \u003ci\u003eThe Song of Kahunsha\u003c\/i\u003e . . . disenchantment remains a primary motif in \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e. But though Irani makes the hell of slums visceral on his pages, he offers here the ways feral compassion can turn to grace.” —\u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Anosh Irani’s \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e is a dark, intimate and probing look at Kamathipura’s Hijra community through the eyes of its protagonist Madhu. . . . Madhu’s moments of realisation are evocatively captured, as the reader plays silent companion to her travails and by default, the lesser-known, insightful side to the Hijra community. . . . Dark, disturbing and yet triumphant . . . riveting twists and turns. High on drama and emotion set in the seamier side of Mumbai, this novel is a page-turner.” —\u003ci\u003eMid-day \u003c\/i\u003e(India)ANOSH IRANI has published four critically acclaimed and award-winning novels: \u003ci\u003eThe Cripple and His Talismans \u003c\/i\u003e(2004), a national bestseller; \u003ci\u003eThe Song of Kahunsha\u003c\/i\u003e(2006), which was an international bestseller and shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; \u003ci\u003eDahanu Road \u003c\/i\u003e(2010), which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and \u003ci\u003eThe Parcel\u003c\/i\u003e (2016), which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His play \u003ci\u003eBombay Black\u003c\/i\u003e won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2006), and his anthology \u003ci\u003eThe Bombay Plays: The Matka King \u0026amp; Bombay Black\u003c\/i\u003e(2006) and his play \u003ci\u003eMen in White\u003c\/i\u003e were both shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama. He lives in Vancouver.\u003ci\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eI go by many names, none of my own choosing. \u003cbr\u003e   I am called Ali, Aravani, Nau Number, Sixer, Mamu, Gandu, Napunsak, Kinnar, Kojja—the list goes on and on like a politician’s promise. There is a term for me in almost every Indian language. I am reviled and revered, deemed to have been blessed, and cursed, with sacred powers. Parents think of me as a kidnapper, shopkeepers as a lucky charm, and married couples as a fertility expert. To passengers in taxis, I am but a nuisance. I am shooed away like a crow. \u003cbr\u003e   Everyone has their version of what I am. Or what they want me to be. \u003cbr\u003e   My least favourite is what they call my kind in Tamil: Thirunangai. \u003cbr\u003e   \"Mister Woman.\" \u003cbr\u003e   Oddly, the only ones to get it right were my parents. They named their boy Madhu. A name so gloriously unisex, I slipped in and out of its skin until I was fourteen. But then, in one fine stroke, that thing between my legs was relieved of its duties. With the very knife that I hold in my hand right now, I became a eunuch. \u003cbr\u003e   Perhaps my parents had smelled the strangeness in the air when I was born, the stench of the pain and humiliation to follow. At the least, they must have felt a deep stirring in the marrow of their bones to prepare them for the fact that their child was different. \u003cbr\u003e   Neither here nor there, neither desert nor forest, neither earth nor sky, neither man nor woman. \u003cbr\u003e   The calling of names I made my peace with years ago. \u003cbr\u003e   The one I am most comfortable with, the most accurate of them, is also the most common: hijra. The word is Urdu for \"migration,\" and we hijras have made it our own because its meaning makes sense to us. \u003cbr\u003e   I am indeed a migrant, a wanderer. For almost three decades, I have floated through the city’s red-light district like a ghost. But this home of mine, this garden of rejects—fourteen lanes that for the rest of the city do not exist—I want it to remember me. I want it to remember even though the district is dissolving, just like I am, like the hot vapour of chai. \u003cbr\u003e   Come on. Who am I fooling? I don’t taste like chai. I am anything but delectable. I have been born and brewed to mortify. At forty, all I have left is a knife dipped in the moon and a five-rupee coin given to me by my mother. \u003cbr\u003e   But mark my words: I will make myself a household name. I will spread my name like butter on these battered streets.","brand":"Vintage Canada","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305086079205,"sku":"NP9780345816757","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345816757.jpg?v=1767740868","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-parcel-isbn-9780345816757","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}