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

by Boo, Katherine
ISBN: 9781594136184
5 (1)
Availability:
$8.99
Used - Trade Paperback - 9781594136184

Available Offers

Ship to HPB West Lane Avenue Out of stock at HPB West Lane Avenue Check other stores
$1.99 - Ready for pickup Apr 11 - 14
Ship to Me
$3.99 - Get it Apr 11 - 14
Only 4 left

Overview

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, 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 twenty-first century's great, unequal cities.
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.
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 fifteen-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, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers "carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.
  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Boo, Katherine
  • ISBN: 9781594136184
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.30 x 0.90
  • Number Of Pages: 419
  • Publication Year: 2013

Customer Reviews

Rating Snapshot

5 ★   100%
4 ★   0%
3 ★   0%
2 ★   0%
1 ★   0%
5
1 Ratings

0

0% Would Recommend
0 Recommendations

Review Images

Sort by:
Filter by:

  • Amazing and tragic true story of a family in India

    Lee C. - 4 years 2 months ago

    This true story of life in a slum in Mumbai, India is one of the most beautifully written and devastating non-fiction books I have ever read. It follows several families that live in a slum in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement close to luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. The main person that we follow is Abdul, an enterprising Muslim teen who works every day gathering the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. As the book progresses, he is accused of a horrible crime and we see the effects on his family as well as others in the settlement. The author is married to an Indian native and lives both there and in the United States. She spent 3 years researching this book, gathering documents and interviewing the people over and over again. Her writing is wonderful, I was hanging on every word. The book showed the razor thin edge between hope and disaster. The outlook on life that some of these people have in spite of their conditions is breathtaking. It is a book that is both inspirational and disturbing at once. The amount of corruption in local and national government in India is hard to comprehend. I highly recommend this book for a look into a culture we know all too little about. National Book Award winner.

    HPB Staff Review