“Behind the Beautiful Forevers” by Katherine Boo – The Never-Ending Search for Prosperity

Before talking about the book itself, I feel like I have to note that Katherine Boo is a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service winner, which was awarded to her as a result of her series of reports on group homes for mentally-ill people, back in the year 2000. However, she didn't stop her exploration of the human condition there, which eventually led her to write Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the result of many years of on-site reporting in Annawabi, Mumbai, India.

In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, we follow the lives of five different families, each one of them living in a slum of Annawabi located right next to the grandiose Mumbai airport and the many luxurious hotels next to it. The reports take us through the period when India started to prosper, igniting the flame of hope in even the poorest members of the slum. 

However, it seems that nothing good lasts forever; in addition to the global recession hitting Mumbai pretty hard, terror now has a firm grip over the city as violent tensions over power, religion, caste, sex and economics grow bigger. I have to say that even though this novel has its fair share of humor and feel-good moments, it certainly isn't for the squeamish. 

Katherine Boo doesn't pull any punches in bringing to us the stories of these people who we will probably never meet; both the good and the bad get described in vivid detail, sometime almost moving me to tears, making me think about how these people have been forced to live due to laws which are based on very arbitrary morals.

However, Katherine didn't simply write this book in order to tell us how bad the people of Annawabi and other similar areas have it. From what I understood, she sought to make it into an exploration of the human spirit, or more precisely, what gives us the drive to see the sunrise once again despite there being a seemingly-endless torment awaiting us.

All in all, this is without a doubt one of the most moving books I have ever read in my life, and as a matter of fact it actually reminded me a lot of In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio by Philippe I. Bourgois, another very interesting report on the lives of people in disadvantaged communities. 

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (Book cover)
But I guess I’m straying from the point here. What I was going to say is that the various tragedies which bring darkness to the lives of the real-life protagonists we come to know weigh heavily on the reader, despite being miles away from them. 

As the reader, you can feel a certain connection forming between yourself and the people in the book, although it is very possible that some of them aren't even alive anymore. If you are looking for a touching and heart-wrenching dose of reality in your readings, Behind the Beautiful Forevers won’t disappoint.



Katherine Boo (Author)

Katherine Boo


Katherine Boo is a journalist who won her fair share of awards (Pulitzer, MacArthur, Hillman, National Magazine, and more) for her dedicated works concentrating on unnoticed and fringe groups of society. Unlike many, her works actually put large changes in motion, and her most famous one is arguably Behind the Beautiful Forevers.



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