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.

【適讀程度】

 Age Range: 14 years +

凱瑟琳．布 Katherine Boo
 
作者近十年來有一半的時間居住在美國，另一半時間則旅居印度，這裡也是她先生的家鄉。她曾任《華盛頓郵報》（The Washington Post）的記者和編輯，目前擔任《紐約客雜誌》（The New Yorker）的專職作家，過去二十年皆在報導貧困社區，思索社會如何分配機會，個人如何擺脫貧困等議題。
 
歷年來，她對於底層社會真實生活的報導，為她贏得了麥克阿瑟天才獎（MacArthur “Genius” grant）、普立茲獎（Pulitzer Prize）、美國國家雜誌獎之專題寫作獎（National Magazine Award for Feature Writing）等殊榮。本書是她初試啼聲的第一本作品。
 
本書網站：www.BehindTheBeautifulForevers.com