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BOOK REVIEW

‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’ by Katherine Boo

A dive into horrific poverty on the edge of Mumbai plumbs the painful ironies of globalism and an emerging India

By Thrity Umrigar

 |   

  February 05, 2012

I read Pulitzer-winner Katherine Boo’s book, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers’’, first with a growing sense of outrage and later, with a sense of despair. Character development. An acute ear for dialogue and idiom. A sense of place. These are the essential ingredients of a good novel. So what’s a fiction writer like me supposed to do when Boo employs all these techniques and writes a book of non-fiction so stellar that puts most novels to shame?

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