Lakshmi, a thirteen-year-old farm girl in danger, the narrator and protagonist of the novel.Mumtaz is ultimately arrested, thus freeing Lakshmi and the other girls. She also teaches herself to read and speak in English through listening to the conversations of people around her and books she manages to take.Įventually, Lakshmi meets an American man, who arrives and disguises himself as a client to gather the evidence he needs to prosecute Mumtaz and her associates. Still, she lives by her mother's words – “Simply to endure is to triumph” – and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new life. Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt – then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. But she soon learns the horrible truth: she has been sold into prostitution.Īn old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. He introduces her to a charming stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. But now the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl living with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. The 2014 movie Sold by Oscar-winning director Jeffrey D.

The novel is written in a series of short, vignette-style chapters, from the point of view of the main character. It tells the story of a girl from Nepal named Lakshmi, who is sold into sexual slavery in India. Sold is a novel by Patricia McCormick, published in 2006.

Sold by Patricia McCormick