Behind the Beautiful Forevers

life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity

Katherine Boo

'A stunning achievement — a monumental work of humane and painstaking observation.'

Anna Funder, author of ALL THAT I AM

'Without question the best book yet written on contemporary India. Also, the best work of narrative nonfiction I’ve read in twenty-five years.'

Ramachandra Guha, author of INDIA AFTER GANDHI

'Boo’s reporting is a form of kinship … There are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them. If we receive the fiery spirit from which it was written, it ought to change much more than that.'

Adrian LeBlanc, author of RANDOM FAMILY

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo comes a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the world’s most lively but treacherous cities.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport and, as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees ‘a fortune beyond counting’ in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter — Annawadi’s ‘most-everything girl’ — will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a 15-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call ‘the full enjoy’.

But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.

With intelligence, humour, and deep insight into what connects human beings in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the 21st century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

'This is a superb book.'

Tracy Kidder, author of MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS

'A riveting, fearlessly reported portrait of a poverty so obliterating that it amounts to a slow-motion genocide. Right now the book is sitting on my shelf making all the other books feel stupid. …'

(Entertainment Weekly)

'A jaw-dropping achievement, an instant classic of narrative nonfiction … '

(Elle)

'A shocking — and riveting — portrait of life in modern India. … This is one stunning piece of narrative nonfiction …'

(O Magazine)

'A mind-blowing read.'

(Redbook)

'[An] exquisitely accomplished first book.'

Janet Maslin (New York Times)

Katherine Boo

Katherine_boo

Author photo
Heleen Welvaart

Katherine Boo, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has spent the last 20 years reporting from within poor communities, considering how societies distribute opportunity and how individuals get out of poverty. Her reporting has been honoured by a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, and the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Boo learned to report at the Washington City Paper. She was also an editor of the Washington Monthly and, for nearly a decade, a reporter and editor at The Washington Post This is her first book.

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Format: Pb
Extent: 288pp
Size: 210mm x 135mm
ISBN (13): 9781921844638
RRP: $27.95
Pub date: February 2012

Rights held:

ANZ