Behind the Beautiful Forevers Sub title: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity Author: Katherine Boo-penguin india
"Annawadi is a slum in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai
airport, and as the Indian economy booms, Annawadians are electric with
hope. Abdul, a reflective teenager, sees ‘a fortune beyond counting’ in
the recyclable garbage that the city’s richer people throw away. He is
so fast, sorting waste, that he’s close to lifting his whole family out
of the slum. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a
childhood in rural poverty, is eyeing an alternate route to the middle
class: political corruption. With a little luck and the right
connections, her sensitive, beautiful teenaged daughter might soon
become the first female college graduate in the slum. And even the
poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a homeless 15-year-old scrap-metal
thief, feel themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times
they call ‘the full enjoy.’
But then Abdul the teenaged garbage sorter is falsely accused in a
shocking tragedy; a terrorist attack and a global recession rock Mumbai;
and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic
envy turn brutal. As the tenderest human hopes intersect with the
harshest realities of life in an Indian megacity, the true contours of a
desperately competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the
resilience and ingenuity of the people of Annawadi.
In Katherine Boo’s fast-paced and riveting book—beautifully written,
rigorously researched and intimately reported—the impact of poverty,
inequality, corruption and global change is made human through
breathtaking, sometimes heartbreaking, stories that will stay with you
forever. "