Katherine "Kate" J. Boo (born August 12, 1964) is an American

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

who has documented the lives of people in poverty. She has won the MacArthur "genius" award (2002) and the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2012), and her work earned the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...

for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. She has been a staff writer for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' magazine since 2003. Her book '' Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity'' won nonfiction prizes from PEN, the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, the New York Public Library, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, in addition to the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Life

Boo grew up in and near Washington, D.C., and attended the

College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III a ...

for two years and transferred to

Barnard Barnard is a version of the surname Bernard, which is a French and West Germanic masculine given name and surname. The surname means as tough as a bear, Bar(Bear)+nard/hard(hardy/tough) __NOTOC__ People Some of the people bearing the surname Ba ...

and then graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University. She is married to

Sunil Khilnani Sunil Khilnani is a professor of politics and history at Ashoka University, India. Previously, he was a professor of politics and the Director of the King's College London India Institute. He is a scholar of Indian history and politics best known ...

, a professor of politics and history at

Ashoka University Ashoka University is a philanthropy-driven private university located in the National Capital Region (NCR), India, focusing on a liberal education in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Sciences. The university is on a mission to buil ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Career

Boo began her career in journalism with writing and editing positions at Washington's '' City Paper'' and then the ''

Washington Monthly ''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine is known for its annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which serves as an alternat ...

''. From there she went to ''

'', where she worked from 1993 to 2003, first as an editor of the Outlook section and then as an investigative reporter. In 2000, ''The Washington Post'' received the

for Boo's 1999 series about group homes for

intellectually disabled Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...

people. The Pulitzer judges noted that her work "disclosed wretched neglect and abuse in the city's group homes for the intellectually disabled, which forced officials to acknowledge the conditions and begin reforms.""The 2000 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Public Service"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-11-01. With reprints of 20 works (articles published by ''The Washington Post'' from March 14 to December 22, 1999). In 2003, she joined the staff of ''

'', to which she had been contributing since 2001. One of her subsequent ''New Yorker'' articles, "The Marriage Cure," won the

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

for Feature Writing in 2004. The article chronicled state-sponsored efforts to teach poor people in an Oklahoma community about marriage in hopes that such classes would help their students avoid or escape poverty. Another of Boo's ''New Yorker'' articles, "After Welfare", won the 2002 Sidney Hillman Award, which honors articles that advance the cause of

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

. In 2002, Boo was a senior fellow at the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

. She won a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

in 2002. She was also a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2010. In 2012, Random House published Boo's first book, '' Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity'', a non-fiction account of life in the Annawadi

slums A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, India. It won the annual

National Book Award for Nonfiction The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five U.S. annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by U.S. citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists ...

on November 14, 2012. In 2022, Boo served as a judge for the

American Mosaic Journalism Prize The American Mosaic Journalism Prize is a journalism prize awarded annually to two freelance journalists "for excellence in long-form, narrative, or deep reporting on stories about underrepresented and/or misrepresented groups in the present Ame ...

Awards

*2000

, ''The Washington Post'', "notably for the work of Katherine Boo" *2002

*2002

The Hillman Prize The Hillman Prize is a journalism award given out annually by The Sidney Hillman Foundation, named for noted American labor leader Sidney Hillman. It is given to "journalists, writers and public figures who pursue social justice and public polic ...

*2004

for Feature Writing *2012

Samuel Johnson Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

, shortlist, ''Behind the Beautiful Forevers'' *2012

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

(Nonfiction), ''Behind the Beautiful Forevers'' *2012 Columbia Journalism Award *2013

PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for nonfiction is awarded by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) biennially "to a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating import ...

, ''Behind the Beautiful Forevers''

Books

* '' Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity''. New York City: Random House (February 7, 2012).

References

External links

*
"The Craft of Writing: Katherine Boo"
''NPR'', JENNIFER LUDDEN, October 16, 2004

''Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism''
"Boo's Clues"
''slate'', Mickey Kaus, May 18, 2001
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Book's website
NPR-Fresh Air Interview
Feb. 8, 2012 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boo, Katherine 1964 births Living people The New Yorker staff writers MacArthur Fellows The Washington Post journalists Barnard College alumni Journalists from Washington, D.C. Radical centrist writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers Place of birth missing (living people) New America (organization)