Based on three years of rigorous reporting, Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo’s first book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” tells the stories of residents living in Annawadi, a slum hidden in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.

Skinny children, numb faces, ugly diseases and filthy huts—many may expect, and some may be ready to feel sorry for the residents.

But this is not so.

Indeed, these people live in unimaginable hardship—no matter how you imagine it, it’s worse. But don’t look at them as faces of poverty. They are human beings like you and me. They love. They hate. They dream. They desire. They have ambitions. They want a better life and they work for it.

The novel is written in an achingly beautiful way. Readers not only see what happens, they feel and they live as Annawadians. They will come to understand what a teenage boy is thinking when he categorizes garbage from dusk till dawn, how it feels to be a Muslim living among Hindus in India, why a woman, in order to avenge her neighbors after a quarrel, sets herself on fire, what globalization means to poor people in a developing country … All things that seem to be too far away to be understood, comes alive in Boo’s narration.

The fast-paced book flows so smoothly that you don't even feel you are reading such serious narration. It just goes on and you can’t put it down.

And it’s more than good stories. It’s also a rigorous inquiry of modernization and inequality. It explores the causes and structures behind Annawadians’ sufferings. As Boo wrote in her note:

 

“What is the infrastructure of opportunity in this society? Whose capabilities are given wing by the market and a government’s economic and social policy? Whose capabilities are squandered? By what means might that riggy child grow up to be less poor?”

 

It’s hard to imagine how much research and reporting Boo has done to produce this book. She understands how local politics have operated, she uses figures and results from public files when it’s appropriate, and she has amazing details of the Annawadians: Abdul doesn’t know what an iPod is, but he wants one; Manju, Annawadi’s “most everything girl,” is obedient to her mother because she is rebellious at heart.

Sometimes, the book may be a bit too emotional for a journalistic work. It’s definitely not the kind of reports you read every day in the newspaper, but by observing Annawadi and immersing herself in it for three years, Boo has the justification to present the truth as she sees it.

Overall, this beautifully written book is both interesting and insightful. It combines an examination of the successes and failures of Mumbai with individual hopes. Whether you are looking for good writing, heartbreaking stories or insightful analysis of modernizing India, it’s worth reading.

 

 

Reach Kay Chinn here.