The Parcel

‘Irani’s portrait of Madhu and her community is tender and heroic, comic and tragic, dignified and destitute all at once.’

* The Skinny *

‘The Parcel is such a fantastically moving novel … one of the most heartbreaking and fascinating novels I’ve read all year.’

* Lonesome Reader (blog) *

‘The Parcel is a magnificent novel, with powerfully imagined characters who yanked me into their lives from the first page and would not let go of me until the last. It is bold, bawdy, tender, funny, sorrowful, all that life is made up of, and when I did reach the end I felt abandoned.’

-- Anita Rau Badami, author of The Hero's Walk

‘Immersive and devastating, The Parcel is a searing tale of personal transformation amid toxic patriarchy. Madhu is at once pathetic and honourable, despicable and mighty — and imbued with such complexity, Irani brings dignity to all the transgender sex-workers of India.’

-- Rajith Savanadasa, author of Ruins

‘Harrowing, enraging, unexpectedly humorous, and also profoundly sad, The Parcel is a haunting work of fiction that illuminates the ways in which history, both political and personal, pervades the present day.’

-- Lauren B. Davis, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla (2016 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury)

‘As engrossing as any thriller, Anosh Irani’s fourth novel offers readers so much more … The Parcel captivates with its vividly rendered characters and commands the reader’s attention by way of unnerving — and at times profoundly disturbing — portraiture of an abject group at the bottom of an already denigrated community at the heart of India’s booming financial hub, Mumbai … Irani’s compassion for these discarded souls, and the assertion of their essential dignity, renders them simultaneously touching and distressing.’

* Quill & Quire (starred review) *

‘Madhu is an ambiguous figure in many ways, and Irani delves deeply into her sad past among a world of outcasts. Pulling its readers’ sympathies in conflicting directions, The Parcel is a challenging novel, sharp and uncompromisingly written.’

* Sunday Herald *

‘Part of the way this excellent book heals such a sprawling, horrifying reality is with beauty and religious depth.’

-- The Globe and Mail

‘The material can be desolating, but Irani generates plenty of black comic detail, evoking the vividness and moral ambiguity of the best Indian noir.’ PICK OF THE WEEK

-- Cameron Woodhead * The Saturday Age *

‘Deeply etched in man’s inhumanity to man and his capacity for both depravity and redemption.’

* Courier Mail *

‘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.’

* NOW *

‘The Parcel takes on weighty, difficult content involving extensive research, and including fascinating, complicated characters.’

* CBC Radio *

‘[A]rresting … A searing, disturbing, and intimate portrait of Kamathipura … [H]is novel exposes a heartbreaking reality.’

* The Vancouver Sun *

‘Irani brings to light a fascinating array of characters.’

* Toronto Star *

‘The Parcel showcases the perceptive acid-streaked sensibility that distinguishes Irani’s novels and plays … As in Irani’s novel The Song of Kahunsha … disenchantment remains a primary motif in The Parcel. But though Irani makes the hell of slums visceral on his pages, he offers here the ways feral compassion can turn to grace.’

* National Post *

‘[A] dark, intimate and probing look at Kamathipura’s Hijra community … Madhu’s moments of realisation are evocatively captured … Dark, disturbing and yet triumphant … [R]iveting twists and turns. High on drama and emotion set in the seamier side of Mumbai, this novel is a page-turner.’

* Mid-day (Indi