“Zehrunisa didn’t know Abdul’s age herself. Seventeen was what she’d said before the burning, when people asked her, but he could have been twenty-seven, for all she knew. You didn’t keep track of a child’s years when you were fighting… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“The forces of justice had finally come to Annawadi. That the beneficiaries were horses was a source of bemusement to Sunil and the road… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“For years, Asha had hoped that her daughter wouldn’t guess about the men. Now she wished she had raised Manju to be worldly enough… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
I was spending a lot of time in Mumbai after I met my husband, who is Indian, and while parts of the city were… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
One thing that was very clear to me is that the young people in a place like Annawadi aren't tripping on caste the way… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“Besides, this was the gentle-going hour in which he hated Annawadi least. The pale sun lent the sewage lake a sparkling silver cast, and… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“No onlooker asked, Why fix a house when the airport authority might demolish it? Almost everyone here improved his hut when he was able,… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
Everyone in Annawadi talks like this: 'Oh, I will make my child a doctor, a lawyer, and he will make us rich'. It's vanity,… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“Like most scavengers, Sunil knew how he appeared to the people who frequented the airport: shoeless, unclean, pathetic. By winter’s end, he had defended… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
“Though Abdul had been afraid of ghosts as most Annawadi boys, these reports did no disturb him. Being terrorized by living people seemed to… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
But if writing about people who are not yourself is illegitimate, then the only legitimate work is autobiography; and as a reader and a… — Katherine Boo Copy Share Image
