In this brilliant, 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 âa fortune beyond countingâ 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, Annawadiâs âmost-everything girl,â 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 centuryâs hidden worldsâand into the hearts of families impossible to forget.
Winner of the National Book Award | The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award | The Los Angeles Times Book Prize | The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award | The New York Public Libraryâs Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times ⢠The Washington Post ⢠O: The Oprah Magazine ⢠USA Today ⢠New York ⢠The Miami Herald ⢠San Francisco Chronicle ⢠Newsday NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker ⢠People ⢠Entertainment Weekly ⢠The Wall Street Journal ⢠The Boston Globe ⢠The Economist ⢠Financial Times ⢠Newsweek/The Daily Beast ⢠Foreign Policy ⢠The Seattle Times ⢠The Nation ⢠St. Louis Post-Dispatch ⢠The Denver Post ⢠Minneapolis Star Tribune ⢠Salon ⢠The Plain Dealer ⢠The Week ⢠Kansas City Star ⢠Slate ⢠Time Out New York ⢠Publishers Weekly NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
âA book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking.ââJunot DĂaz, The New York Times Book Review âReported like Watergate, written like Great Expectations, and handily the best international nonfiction in years.ââNew York
âThis book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.ââJudgesâ Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award
â[A] landmark book.ââThe Wall Street Journal âA triumph of a book.ââAmartya Sen
âThere are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them.ââAdrian Nicole LeBlanc
â[A] stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . [Katherine] Booâs prose is electric.ââO: The Oprah Magazine âInspiring, and irresistible . . . Booâs extraordinary achievement is twofold. She 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.ââPeople
In this brilliant, 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 âa fortune beyond countingâ 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, Annawadiâs âmost-everything girl,â 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 centuryâs hidden worldsâand into the hearts of families impossible to forget.
Winner of the National Book Award | The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award | The Los Angeles Times Book Prize | The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award | The New York Public Libraryâs Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times ⢠The Washington Post ⢠O: The Oprah Magazine ⢠USA Today ⢠New York ⢠The Miami Herald ⢠San Francisco Chronicle ⢠Newsday NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker ⢠People ⢠Entertainment Weekly ⢠The Wall Street Journal ⢠The Boston Globe ⢠The Economist ⢠Financial Times ⢠Newsweek/The Daily Beast ⢠Foreign Policy ⢠The Seattle Times ⢠The Nation ⢠St. Louis Post-Dispatch ⢠The Denver Post ⢠Minneapolis Star Tribune ⢠Salon ⢠The Plain Dealer ⢠The Week ⢠Kansas City Star ⢠Slate ⢠Time Out New York ⢠Publishers Weekly NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
âA book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking.ââJunot DĂaz, The New York Times Book Review âReported like Watergate, written like Great Expectations, and handily the best international nonfiction in years.ââNew York
âThis book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.ââJudgesâ Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award
â[A] landmark book.ââThe Wall Street Journal âA triumph of a book.ââAmartya Sen
âThere are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them.ââAdrian Nicole LeBlanc
â[A] stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . [Katherine] Booâs prose is electric.ââO: The Oprah Magazine âInspiring, and irresistible . . . Booâs extraordinary achievement is twofold. She 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.ââPeople