Episode 1

"One of the most powerful indictments of economic inequality I've ever read. If Bollywood ever decides to do its own version of The Wire, this would be it." Barbara Ehrenreich

Sudha Bhuchar reads Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo's landmark work of life, death and hope in the slums of Mumbai. Based on years of uncompromising reporting, Behind the Beautiful Forevers tells the story of Annawadi, a makeshift slum sitting in the shadow of Mumbai's glittering luxury hotels and shiny new international airport. Boo tells the tale of those she met there, from the garbage scavenger to the wannabe slumlord, the corrupt police officers to the slum's first female college graduate, as she looks at what it takes to escape poverty in one of the 21st century's great, unequal cities.

Today: while local teenage boys see a job in the luxury hotels as a way out, one woman sets her sights on becoming the slum's first female slumlord.

Author: Katherine Boo is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is currently a staff writer at the New Yorker. This is her first book.
Reader: Sudha Bhuchar is joint founder and Artistic Director of the theatre company, Tamasha, and is both an actor and playwright.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton-Jones
Producer: Justine Willett.