Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. Her reporting has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur "Genius" grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the last decade, she has divided her time between the United States and India. This is her first book.
"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 book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . .
beyond groundbreaking."--Junot Diaz, The New York Times Book
Review "Reported like Watergate, written like Great Expectations,
and handily the best international nonfiction in years."--New
York "Incandescent writing and excruciatingly good
storytelling."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Outstanding."--USA Today
"A richly detailed tapestry of tragedy and triumph told by a
seemingly omniscient narrator with an attention to detail that
reads like fiction while in possession of the urgent humanity of
nonfiction."--Los Angeles Times "Rends the heart, thrills the mind,
pricks the conscience, and burns the pages."--Washingtonian
"[An] exquisitely accomplished first book. Novelists dream of
defining characters this swiftly and beautifully, but Ms. Boo is
not a novelist. She is one of those rare, deep-digging journalists
who can make truth surpass fiction, a documentarian with a superb
sense of human drama. She makes it very easy to forget that this
book is the work of a reporter. . . . Comparison to Dickens is not
unwarranted."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times "A
jaw-dropping achievement, an instant classic of narrative
nonfiction . . . With a cinematic intensity . . . Boo transcends
and subverts every cliche, cynical or earnest, that we harbor about
Indian destitution and gazes directly into the hearts, hopes, and
human promise of vibrant people whom you'll not soon
forget."--Elle
"Riveting, fearlessly reported . . . [Behind the Beautiful
Forevers] plays out like a swift, richly plotted novel. That's
partly because Boo writes so damn well. But it's also because over
the course of three years in India she got extraordinary access to
the lives and minds of the Annawadi slum, a settlement nestled
jarringly close to a shiny international airport and a row of
luxury hotels. Grade: A."--Entertainment Weekly "A shocking--and
riveting--portrait of life in modern India . . . This is one
stunning piece of narrative nonfiction. . . . Boo's prose is
electric."--O: The Oprah Magazine "[A] landmark
book."--The Wall Street Journal "Moving . . . a humane,
powerful and insightful book . . . a book of nonfiction so stellar
it puts most novels to shame."--The Boston Globe "A
mind-blowing read."--Redbook "An unforgettable true story,
meticulously researched with unblinking honesty . . . pure,
astonishing reportage with as unbiased a lens as
possible."--The Christian Science Monitor "The most
riveting Indian story since Slumdog Millionaire--except hers is
true."--Marie Claire
"Seamless and intimate . . . a scrupulously true story . . . It's
tempting to compare [Behind the Beautiful Forevers] to a
novel, but . . . that would hardly do it justice."--Salon
"Extraordinary . . . moving . . . Like the best journeys, Boo's
book cracks open our preconceptions and constructs an abiding
bridge--at once daunting and inspiring--to a world we would never
otherwise recognize as our own."--National Geographic
Traveler "Behind the Beautiful Forevers offers a rebuke to
official reports and dry statistics on the global poor. . . . Boo
is one of few chroniclers providing this picture. She's a moral
force and . . . an artist of reverberating power."--The
American Prospect "Kate Boo's reporting is a form of kinship. Abdul
and Manju and Kalu of Annawadi will not be forgotten. She leads us
through their unknown world, her gift of language rising up like a
delicate string of necessary lights. There are books that change
the way you feel and see; this is one of them. If we receive the
fiery spirit from which it was written, it ought to change much
more than that."--Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random
Family
"I couldn't put Behind the Beautiful Forevers down even when
I wanted to--when the misery, abuse and filth that Boo so elegantly
and understatedly describes became almost overwhelming. Her book,
situated in a slum on the edge of Mumbai's international airport,
is one of the most powerful indictments of economic inequality I've
ever read. If Bollywood ever decides to do its own version of
The Wire, this would be it."--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of
Nickel and Dimed
"A beautiful account, told through real-life stories, of the
sorrows and joys, the anxieties and stamina, in the lives of the
precarious and powerless in urban India whom a booming country has
failed to absorb and integrate. A brilliant book that
simultaneously informs, agitates, angers, inspires, and
instigates."--Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy
at Harvard University, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
"Without question the best book yet written on contemporary India.
Also, the best work of narrative nonfiction I've read in
twenty-five years."--Ramachandra Guha, author of India After
Gandhi
"There is a lot to like about this book: the prodigious research
that it is built on, distilled so expertly that we hardly notice
how much we are being taught; the graceful and vivid prose that
never calls attention to itself; and above all, the true and moving
renderings of the people of the Mumbai slum called Annawadi.
Garbage pickers and petty thieves, victims of gruesome
injustice--Ms. Boo draws us into their lives, and they do not let
us go. This is a superb book."--Tracy Kidder, author of
Mountains Beyond Mountains and Strength in What Remains
"It might surprise you how completely enjoyable this book is, as
rich and beautifully written as a novel. In the hierarchy of long
form reporting, Katherine Boo is right up there."--David
Sedaris
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