Winner · 2012 NBA Nonfiction

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Name: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
ISBN: 0679645500

by Katherine Boo

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Publisher: Random House
Length: ≈ 256 pages
Reading time: 7–9 hours
ISBN: 0679645500

Reading time assumes 30–40 pages per hour; edition and reading pace affect this estimate. Edition source

What is this book about?

Katherine Boo’s work of non-fiction is set in Annawadi, a slum in the shadow of Mumbai’s airport. It follows a teenager, Abdul Hakim Husain, and the web of people around him. The National Book Award judges compared her prose and purpose to those of Dickens and Zola.

Source: National Book Foundation: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity