Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY • AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

“Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] 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 tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.”—Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, USA Today, New York, The Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday

In this 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 PEN Nonfiction Award • The Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award • The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, People, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Seattle Times, The Nation, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Denver Post, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Week, Kansas City Star, Slate, Publishers Weekly

too depressing, the reviews where right.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

no, the story went no where. so sad and horrible

Has Behind the Beautiful Forevers turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

Would you be willing to try another one of Sunil Malhotra’s performances?

monotone

Was Behind the Beautiful Forevers worth the listening time?

no, I tried finishing but couldn't

Well written and cinematic but depressing

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Two things - 1) understand that it needs realism but it was all disaster, corruption and struggle all the way through. Would have really liked a little "hope" thrown in there too. 2) Would have liked a stronger story thread - chopping and changing between so many characters constantly left me a little lost, especially when listening in small chunks.

What does Sunil Malhotra bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great voices, accents, gave atmosphere and realism to the story.

eight hours of non-stop heartbreak

Super sad story, enlivened by solid narration. Difficult to hear how the largest democracy on the planet also includes human tragedy almost beyond comprehension.

Reporting that reads like literature

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

You can't listen to this in all one sitting--it's pretty heavy material. I would listen to it for about an hour each day on my way to/leaving work and any more would have likely affected my mood throughout the day.

Any additional comments?

I overall really enjoyed how this story was told--it's nonfiction, but it reads very much like a novel. It's skillful, and while I worry that there might be some embellishments and liberties, it overall seems like the piece was very well-researched in the writer's 4 year's time in the slum. I just wish the author's note would have been provided at the beginning of the book to give it more context--halfway through listening, I was convinced that the book couldn't be a nonfiction book like i had initially thought when I had purchased it. After hearing the author's note about the events being truthful, the deaths and events that happened to the families that are focused on in this book hit me all at once, and it was a little much.

Reads like fiction.

I loved this book. Excellent storytelling honoring the complexity of lived experience and the entrenched reality of poverty set in a country I love. Highly recommend.