In her first book, Katherine Boo tells an engrossing non-fiction account of life in the slums of Mumbai. Following three people as they try to make it to the middle class, Boo spent three-and-a-half years with them to tell her story.

Boo is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a Pulitzer Prize winner for her work at The Washington Post.

From the New York Times review:

Half an acre. 335 huts. 3,000 people. And a concrete wall that is supposed to hide them from view: this is Annawadi, the Mumbai slum that comes vibrantly to life in this book's pages. Ms. Boo says that she chose Annawadi because the scale of this 'sumpy plug of slum' bordering a lake of sewage was small, and its location was fraught with possibilities. Annawadi sits beside the road to the Mumbai airport, on 'a stretch where new India and old India collided and made new India late.' In 2008, at the time the events in the book unfolded, scavenging and trash sorting were the children of Annawadi's most promising career choices.

Boo spoke with Kerri Miller on The Daily Circuit March 1.

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