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When the Moon Is Low cover art

When the Moon Is Low

By: Nadia Hashimi
Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Neil Shah
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Summary

The unforgettable story of an Afghan family’s escape from the Taliban and perilous trek across Europe to seek asylum, led by one extraordinarily courageous woman. This is the second novel by Nadia Hashimi, the author of last year’s breakout The Pearl That Broke Its Shell.

Mahmoud’s passion for his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world - a life of education, work, and comfort - implodes when their country is engulfed in war and the Taliban rises to power.

Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: She must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.

Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe’s capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.

©2015 Nadia Hashimi (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about When the Moon Is Low

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A Brilliant Listen

I really liked this book, a difficult story that is all too true, told with compassion but very sad at times. It really makes you think differently about refugees and how it could have been any one of us. Perhaps it should be played in UK schools. I liked most of the narrative apart from when the man was depicting Salim and other voices. They were a bit gruff, comical and quieter than the rest of his audio. I had to turn the volume up at these parts sometimes and down again afterwards. His normal narrating voice was very good though. The woman also narrated well and was easy to listen to. Despite that I would still really recommend this audio book. I hope there will be a sequel as it stopped a bit ubruptiy.

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The most beautiful story I have ever heard

The story is so beautiful, so heart breaking and it really put you in the shoes of people that have made similar journey for decades.

Being an Afghan it is particularly difficult to listen to this story. I certainly needed to take breaks when it become too much and too real.

Important side note: the voice actors are not Afghan and their pronunciation of Afghan words was god-aweful. The voice actor for Salim being the absolute worst offender. Why the producers could not make the effort of finding two Afghans to voice the story is beyond me. Nadia Hashimi had created a masterpiece and you have to listen to the most emotional parts trying to enjoy the truly terrible voice acting and pronunciation.

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A beautiful book sensitively written

It really helped me to understand better the state of the dispossessed in life who need to flee their Country ( in this case after the Taliban took over Afghanistan) and to follow a family ( mother and 3 children) in their ordeal through different Countries and many distressing situations. But this book is a positive book: the resilience of the two main characters Fereiba and Saleem, their strength and determination and the way in which they are portrayed by the author makes this book a true gem. I think it is one of the best books I have ever read .

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The reality of the story line

Narrators were not the best and detracted from the story however it was a good listen

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  • KT
  • 06-09-23

Captivating story but poor narrantion

I really enjoyed this story. It was eye opening to understand what migrants face when trying to find a safe life for their family. The female narration was excellent but the male
Narration was the worst I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a robot talking and at times I thought it had been done using AI it was so poor. There was no intonation at all, no emotion. After the beautiful female narration this male narration nearly ruined the book for me as it was painful to listen to but I persisted as I enjoyed the story. I would recommend reading the book rather than listening to it so you don’t have to suffer listening to this narrator and ruining the story for you.

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