Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insider's view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs, following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse, opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood, and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.

As each individual story unfolds, Mehta also recounts his own efforts to make a home in Bombay after more than twenty years abroad. Candid, impassioned, funny, and heartrending, Maximum City is a revelation of an ancient and ever-changing world.

Suketu Mehta's book Maximum City: Mumbai Lost and Found was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award. The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Granta, Harper's, Time, and GQ have all featured his work. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Prize, and an O. Henry Award. The Henry Prize is an award given to a person who has He was born in Calcutta and now resides in New York City, where he teaches journalism as an associate professor at New York University.