"When I settle into a place, listening and watching, I don't try to fool myself that the stories of individuals are themselves arguments.  I just believe that better arguments, maybe even better policies, get formulated when we know about ordinary lives."

-- Katherine Boo, Behind The Beautiful Forevers (p. 251)

A PDF Version Of The Book:  For an acceptable free on-line copy of the book, click Behind The Beautiful Forevers.

SOME QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

How would you describe Behind The Beautiful Forevers?  What is this book about?  To what extent is this a book about life in the slum of Annawadi?  A book about Mumbai?  About India?  About the global economy?

How would you connect the title of the book to its most important themes?  What are those themes?

Who is Katherine Boo?  What is her background and what was her approach and method to writing this book?  To what degree has the outsider Boo been successful in taking us inside the lives, the dreams, and the deepest self-understandings of the residents of Annawadi?  How are we as readers to judge this?  What are the strength and weaknesses of Behind the Beautiful Forevers?

How is the book structured and how does that reflect the author's themes and choices?

What surprised you about this book?

Was there one person in the book who seemed particularly interesting or revealing?  If so, who and how? (Some of the major characters within this work of non-fiction include the following:  Abdul, Asha, Fatima, Manju, Meena, Sunil, and Zehrunisa.)

How would you begin to describe the individual worldviews of the residents of Annawadi and the relationships between the residents?

How does the world beyond Annawadi and those who live in the overcity intersect with the residents of the slum?  How does learning about that overcity through the perspective of Annawadi's residents change our understanding on both the world beyond the slum and of its own residents?

What role does corruption play within Behind the Beautiful Forevers?  Politics?  The criminal justice system?

One Annawadi girl:  "We try so many things, but the world doesn't move in our favor."  (p. 219)  Comment.

How would you begin to compare and contrast the lives of the women of Annawadi with those of village India?

In what ways does history and historical change make its way into Katherine Boo's book?  What does this book add to our understanding of history since 1945?  Why or why not is the book a good choice for HIS 122?