Castaway mountain : love and loss among the Wastepickers of Mumbai / Saumya Roy.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Astra House, a division of Astra Publishing House, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First editionDescription: xii, 259 pages : map ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- cartographic image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781662600951
- 166260095X
- Ragpickers -- India -- Mumbai -- Social conditions
- Ragpickers -- India -- Mumbai -- Economic conditions
- Poor -- India -- Mumbai
- Marginality, Social -- India -- Mumbai
- Plastic scrap -- Economic aspects -- India
- Refuse and refuse disposal -- India -- Mumbai
- Slums -- India -- Mumbai
- Mumbai (India) -- Social conditions -- 21st century
- Mumbai (India) -- Economic conditions -- 21st century
- Sanitary landfills -- India -- Mumbai
- Human ecology -- India
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
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Main Library | NonFiction | 954.792 R888 | Available | 33111010559470 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
*One of NPR's "Books We Love 2021"*
"'I came to see the mountains as an outpouring of our modern lives,' Roy writes, 'of the endless chase for our desires to fill us.' Readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be drawn to this harrowing portrait."
--Publishers Weekly
" Castaway Mountain deserves every accolade. A stunning achievement."
--Kiran Desai, Booker Prize Winner, author of Inheritance of Loss .
All of Mumbai's possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountains are covered in a faint smog from trash fires. Over time, as wealth brought Bollywood knock offs, fast food and plastics to Mumbaikars, a small, forgotten community of migrants and rag-pickers came to live at the mountains' edge, making a living by re-using, recycling and re-selling.
Among them is Farzana Ali Shaikh, a tall, adventurous girl who soon becomes one of the best pickers in her community. Over time, her family starts to fret about Farzana's obsessive relationship to the garbage. Like so many in her community, Farzana, made increasingly sick by the trash mountains, is caught up in the thrill of discovery--because among the broken glass, crushed cans, or even the occasional dead baby, there's a lingering chance that she will find a treasure to lift her family's fortunes.
As Farzana enters adulthood, her way of life becomes more precarious. Mumbai is pitched as a modern city, emblematic of the future of India, forcing officials to reckon with closing the dumping grounds, which would leave the waste pickers more vulnerable than ever.
In a narrative instilled with superstition and magical realism, Saumya Roy crafts a modern parable exploring the consequences of urban overconsumption. A moving testament to the impact of fickle desires, Castaway Mountain reveals that when you own nothing, you know where true value lies: in family, community and love.
Interior map illustration copyright (c) Jake Coolidge
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-254).
"All of Mumbai's possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountain. Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountain is covered in a faint mist, smog, or smoke from trash fires and flanked by a creek that runs out the Arabian Sea. Over time, as wealth brought Bollywood knockoffs, fast food, and plastics to Mumbaikars, a small, forgotten community of migrants and ragpickers came to live at the mountain's edge, making a living by reusing, recycling, and reselling."-- Provided by publisher.