title: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity
author:  Katherine Boo 
description: A book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking.<b>Junot Daz, <i>The New York Times Book Review </i></b><br /><br />Reported like Watergate, written like <i>Great Expectations, </i>and handily the best international nonfiction in years.<b><i>New York</i></b><br /><br />This book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.<b>Judges Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award</b><br /><br />Incandescent writing and excruciatingly good storytelling.<b><i>The Philadelphia Inquirer</i></b><br /> <b><i></i></b><br /> Outstanding.<b><i>USA Today</i></b><br /> <i></i><br /> 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.<b><i>Los Angeles Times</i></b><br /> <br /> Rends the heart, thrills the mind, pricks the conscience, and burns the pages.<b><i>Washingtonian</i></b><br /><br />[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.<b>Janet Maslin, <i>The New York Times</i></b><br /><br />A jaw-dropping achievement, an instant classic of narrative nonfiction . . . With a cinematic intensity . . . Boo transcends and subverts every clich, cynical or earnest, that we harbor about Indian destitution and gazes directly into the hearts, hopes, and human promise of vibrant people whom youll not soon forget.<b></b><i><b>Elle</b><br /></i><br />Riveting, fearlessly reported . . . [<i>Behind theBeautiful Forevers</i>]<i> </i>plays out like a swift, richly plotted novel. Thats partly because Boo writes so damn well. But its 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.<b><i>Entertainment Weekly</i></b><br /><br />A tough-minded, inspiring, and irresistible book . . . Boos 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 importantly, she makes us care.<b><i>People</i> (four stars)</b><br /><br />A shockingand rivetingportrait of life in modern India . . . This is one stunning piece of narrative nonfiction. . . . Boos prose is electric.<b><i>O: The Oprah Magazine</i></b><br /><br />[A] landmark book.<b><i>TheWall Street Journal </i></b><br /><br />Moving . . . a humane, powerful and insightful book . . . a book of nonfiction so stellar it puts most novels to shame.<b><i>TheBoston Globe</i></b><br /><br />A mind-blowing read.<b><i>Redbook</i></b><br /><br />An unforgettable true story, meticulously researched with unblinking honesty . . . pure, astonishing reportage with as unbiased a lens as possible.<b><i>TheChristian Science Monitor</i> </b><br /><br />The most riveting Indian story since <i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>except hers is true.<b></b><i><b>Marie Claire</b><br /></i><br />Seamless and intimate . . . a scrupulously true story . . . Its tempting to compare [<i>Behind the Beautiful Forevers</i>] to a novel, but . . . that would hardly do it justice.<b><i>Salon</i></b><br /><br />Extraordinary . . . moving . . . Like the best journeys, Boos book cracks open our preconceptions and constructs an abiding bridgeat once daunting and inspiringto a world we would never otherwise recognize as our own.<b><i>National Geographic Traveler</i></b><br /><br /><i>Behind the Beautiful Forevers </i>offers a rebuke to official reports and dry statistics on the global poor. . . . Boo is one of few chroniclers providing this picture. Shes a moral force and . . . an artist of reverberating power.<b><i>The American Prospect</i></b><br /><br />Kate Boos 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.<b>Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of </b><i><b>Random Family</b><br /></i><br />I couldnt put<i>Behind the Beautiful Forevers</i>down even when I wanted towhen the misery, abuse and filth that Boo so elegantly and understatedly describes became almost overwhelming. Her book, situatedin a slum on the edge of Mumbais internationalairport,is one of the most powerful indictments of economicinequality Ive ever read. If Bollywood everdecides to do its ownversion of<i>The Wire,</i> this would be it.<b>Barbara Ehrenreich, author of</b><i><b>Nickel and Dimed</b><br /></i><br />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.<b>Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics</b><br /><br />Without question the best book yet written on contemporary India. Also, the best work of narrative nonfiction Ive read in twenty-five years.<b>Ramachandra Guha, author of</b><i><b>IndiaAfter Gandhi</b><br /></i><br />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 injusticeMs. Boo draws us into their lives, and they do not let us go. This is a superb book.<b>Tracy Kidder, author of <i>Mountains Beyond Mountains </i>and <i>Strength in What Remains</i></b><br /><br />"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.<b>David Sedaris</b>
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  ![](images/Boo_9780679643951_epub_tp_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2012 by Katherine Boo
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House
  Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
  
  
  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
  
  
  Boo, Katherine.  
  Behind the beautiful forevers : life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity /
  Katherine Boo.  
  p. cm.  
  eISBN: 978-0-679-64395-1  
  1\. Urban poor—India—Mumbai. I. Title.  
  HV4140.M86B66 2011  
  305.5’690954792—dc23 2011019555
  
  
  [www.atrandom.com](http://www.atrandom.com)
  
  
  v3.1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _For two Sunils_  
   _and what they’ve taught me about not giving up_
  
  
  
  
  
  # ![](images/Boo_9780679643951_epub_001_r1.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  [_Cover_](Boo_9780679643951_epub_cvi_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Title Page_](Boo_9780679643951_epub_tp_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Copyright_](Boo_9780679643951_epub_cop_r1.htm)
  
  
  [_Dedication_](