NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST
NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE "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 NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE
YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • USA Today • New York
• The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday In this brilliant 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 John Kenneth Galbraith 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 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • People •
Entertainment Weekly • The Wall Street Journal • The Boston Globe • The Economist • Financial
Times • Newsweek The Daily Beast • Foreign Policy • The Seattle Times • The Nation • St. Louis
Post-Dispatch • The Denver Post • Minneapolis Star Tribune • Salon • The Plain Dealer • The
Week • Kansas City Star • Slate • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly
