Wednesday, October 10, 2012

National Book Award Finalists

I was reading about the National Book Award Finalists on Salon.com, when I came across the non-fiction finalists.

Katharine Boo, a writer for the New Yorker, has been nominated for “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity”, her "journey in an Indian slum."

WHEN will these slum stories end? And WHEN will people stop getting awards for them?

Now, I haven't read her story. It's probably a well-written, heart-wrenching story.

Sure, 2004's Oscar-winning Born into Brothels was really good.

Yeah, I enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire.

But when are people going to tell the other stories coming out of India?

A book I started, but haven't finished is Sideways on a Scooter. This book tells the tale of a journalist who just picks up and moves to India. I can relate to her isolation and loneliness of being in a foreign country so far away from everyone you love. The book also delves into modern India. The rise of the middle class; call center jobs that are giving rise to women to be more financially independent in a landscape where the choices were extraordinarily limited.

Where's the story of this new India, people?

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