Batuk er en veslevoksen 15-årig jente fra landsbygda i India. Ni år gammel selges hun av sin far, og må selge sex på Common Street i Mumbai. Batuk klarer å få tak i en blyant og en skrivebok, og noterer ned sine tanker og historier. Den blå skriveboken er en rørende bok om et barns kamp for å overleve, og en sterk hyllest til fantasiens kraft.
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.
"Midnattsbarn" er Den store romanen om India - et under av fantasi og fortellerglede, en roman full av utrolige hendelser: fødsler og forvekslinger, kjærlighet og død, krig og andre omveltninger. For leseren åpner det seg et India veldig og gripende i sin størrelse og sammensatthet.
Labels: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Den blå skriveboken, Fremtidige favoritter, Midnattsbarn, sommerfugl i lenker