Behind the Beautiful Forever: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai City - Book Review

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English
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Introduction
The novel “Behind the beautiful forever: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai City” by
Katherine Boo captures the life of various slum dwellers in the Mumbai city (Boo, 2014). She
has tried to showcase the daily life and dreams of the people who live below the poverty line
in the Indian city. It is a non-fictional book that portrays the real-life challenges of many
people in the developing country. The thesis statement is the interconnected lives of various
characters have been described in the story by Katherine. The story takes place in
“Annawadi”. The story is unique since the author believes that every character represents a
part of her.
Living conditions and other aspects of life in the slum
The non-fictional theme has been used by Katherine while writing the story so that the actual
living conditions of the slum people can be portrayed in the most realistic manner. The daily
issues and challenges that are faced by the residents such as poverty, illiteracy, hunger, dirt,
disease, lack of hygiene, etc are highlighted in the book.
Various characters have been introduced like Abdul, a person who sorts garbage in the
specific slum, Karam and Zehrunisa, his parents, and Mirchi, his younger brother. Sunil is
another young resident of Annawadi who looks for trash so that he can sell them to Abdul
(Boo, 2014, pp 25). The different characters have been highlighted so that the living
conditions of the people can be portrayed in an accurate manner. Different things like
violence, crime, theft, malnutrition, etc that are faced by the inhabitants on a daily basis form
the structure of the story. The story is an attempt to paint the life of people living in the slum
setting.
Key characteristic of the book which made the strongest impression