Moth

By: Melody Razak

Narrated by: Ayesha Dharker

Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Delhi, 1946. Ma and Bappu teach at the local university. Their fourteen-year-old daughter - precocious, headstrong Alma - is soon to be married: Alma is mostly interested in the wedding shoes and spinning wild stories for her little sister Roop.

Times are bad for girls in India: the long-awaited independence from British rule brings unrest that threatens to unravel the rich tapestry of Delhi. And when Partition happens overnight, Ma, Bappu, Alma and Roop are forced to find new and increasingly desperate ways to survive.

But the power of hope is an extraordinary thing...

©2021 Melody Razak (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group

Critic reviews

"I was utterly transported by Moth. Melody Razak takes us right to the heart and the heat of Partition-era Delhi - a fracturing city, a fracturing nation and a family attempting to hold themselves together when everything threatens to tear them apart. A stunning, powerful work by a brave new voice in British fiction." (Anna Hope, author of Expectations)

"Moth is a powerful and moving story of a liberal, Brahmin family caught up in the violence and social unrest of post-partition India. It is written with absolute fidelity to the small rituals of daily life, the allegiances and jealousies within families, and the huge and overwhelming forces of history. The writer's skill and sympathy are immense." (Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures)

"Powerful and heartbreaking." (Observer)

Gruesome

I couldn't finish this unfortunately. I was...I can't exactly say "enjoying" because of the often grim nature of the narrative, but I was thoroughly absorbed, mostly because of the excellent reading of the narrator.
However, while I was prepared for the atrocities committed during Partition, I was certainly not prepared for one of the storylines to be about incest, I just found this particularly graphic storyline too gross to listen to so couldn't finish.