Anosh Irani Knihy

Three-time Governor General’s Literary Award–shortlisted author and playwright Anosh Irani’s critically acclaimed one-man show  Buffoon  is a masterclass of tragicomic theatre. Born to circus folk who prefer trapezing over parenting, Felix quickly learns to turn life’s misfortunes into jokes. His longing for family and home is piqued at the tender age of seven when he falls hopelessly in love with an older woman, the beguiling Aja, who is eight. In the process, a clown is born, and we watch him grow into a middle-aged buffoon. Over time, Felix stops waiting for someone else to love him; his journey becomes one of loving himself. A story of love, loss, and the fate that binds us, Buffoon is a gut-wrenching one-man show that expertly walks the tightrope between heartbreak and hilarity.

The narrative follows ten-year-old Chamdi as he navigates the perilous streets of Bombay in search of his long-lost father. Richly evoking the city's vibrant sights and sounds, the story captures Chamdi's resilience and determination to survive amidst the challenges he faces.

'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.' In the swollen and crumbling red-light district of Kamathipura, at the heart of Bombay, Madhu is given a difficult and potentially lucrative task by her housemother -- to prepare a newly arrived 'parcel' for its opening. The parcel is a ten-year-old girl from the provinces, sold into the sex trade by her aunt. Madhu's home is Hijra House, one of the last bastions in the land war slowly consuming the area, as property developers vie for land. It is here that 'hijras' -- eunuchs, people of the third sex, 'neither here nor there' -- ply their trade. Now forty and with her looks and spirit waning, Madhu struggles with the task she has been given, confronted by memories of her past, of how she was rejected by her family -- and by how she longs, secretly, to go back to them. Everything is dissolving within and around her. Then, as the land war comes to a head, and with her housemother coming under pressure by the hijra elders to sell their home, Madhu realises she must do something to save herself. The Parcelis the masterful new novel from acclaimed author Anosh Irani, and is a savage and beautifully rendered story about community, belonging, and the cheapness of human life.