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 “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, Annawadi’s “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 century’s hidden worlds—and 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 & Letters Award in
Literature | The New York Public Library 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
“A book of
extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking.”—Junot
Díaz, The New York Times Book Review
“This book
is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary
masterpiece.”—Judges’ Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award
“[A]
landmark book.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A triumph
of a book.”—Amartya Sen
“There are
books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them.”—Adrian Nicole
LeBlanc
“[A]
stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . [Katherine] Boo’s prose is
electric.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Inspiring,
and irresistible . . . Boo’s 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.”—People
“A
jaw-dropping achievement, an instant classic.”—Elle
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