Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

ISBN: 081297932X

Author: Boo, Katherine

Condition: New

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER ONE OF TIMES TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMESS 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADESInspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.-PeopleA tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.-Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith AwardONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, New York, The Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, NewsdayIn this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees a fortune beyond counting in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadis most-everything girl, might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first centurys hidden worlds-and into the hearts of families impossible to forget.WINNER OF: The PEN Nonfiction Award The Los Angeles Times Book Prize The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award The New York Public Librarys Helen Bernstein Book AwardA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, People, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Seattle Times, The Nation, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Denver Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Week, Kansas City Star, Slate, Publishers Weekly