三民網路書店 寫著「美好永遠」的機場邊牆背後
正上演著眾多不美好的故事
在孟買的任何一個貧民窟
要活下去，就注定犯罪
在這座汙穢貧瘠的垃圾國境
人像垃圾一樣被嚴格分類，
正義像垃圾一樣彼此交易，
生命更像垃圾一樣不值一哂……
沒有清水的湖泊，沒有藥物的醫院，沒有真理的司法制度
這座貧民窟，遙望著華麗的孟買機場與飯店建築
宛如玫瑰叢中荒謬存在的糞坑
阿布杜不明白，為什麼他與世無爭地拾荒維生，
卻因為比鄰居稍微不貧窮一點，就必須被誣陷入獄？
阿莎不明白，為什麼國家的貪腐竊取許多人民的機會，
她卻不能利用貪腐，竊取其他窮人的機會？
蘇尼爾不明白，號稱破案率百分百的警方，
卻只幫他遭到謀殺的朋友，隨便安上一個因病過世的死因？……
普立茲得主凱瑟琳．布深刻描述貧民窟中因嫉妒、競爭、絕望等情結，外加宗教、政治和印度社會階級等複雜因素，如何在寫著「美好永遠」的機場邊牆背後，釀造出一樁樁不美好的心碎故事。
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter — Annawadi’s “most-everything girl” — will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”
But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.
★本書中譯版《美好永遠的背後》由商周出版。
作者簡介
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。
Katherine Boo is a staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. Her reporting has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur “Genius” grant, and a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. For the last decade, she has divided her time between the United States and India. This is her first book.
