| Edition |
1st ed. |
| Description |
xxii, 256 p. ; 25 cm. |
| Contents |
Between roses -- Undercitizens. Annawadi ; Asha ; Sunil ; Manju. -- The Business of Burning. Ghost house ; A hole she called a window ; The come-apart -- The master. -- A Little Wildness. Marquee effect ; Parrots, caught and sold ; Proper sleep. -- Up and Out. Nine nights of dance ; Something shining ; The trial ; Ice ; Black and white ; A school, a hospital, a cricket field. |
| Summary |
This work of narrative nonfiction tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In it, based on three years of reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. The events recounted are real, as are all the names. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees fortune in the recyclable garbage of richer people. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a rural childhood, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter, Annawadi's "most-everything girl," will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to good times they call "the full enjoy." But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi. |
| Study Program |
AR RL 7.8 14.0 PHS |
| Source |
NBK 10/12 PPL |
| Awards |
National Book Award, 2012. |
| Subject |
Urban poor -- India -- Mumbai.
|
|
Creative nonfiction.
|
|
Urban poor -- India -- Mumbai
|
| Note |
Dust jacket title: Behind the beautiful forevers : life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity |
| ISBN |
9781400067558 (hbk : alk. paper) |
|
1400067553 (hbk : alk. paper) |
|
9780679645504 (ebook) |
|
0679645500 (ebook) |
|
9780812994186 |
|
0812994183 |
|
