Maximum City
Encyclopedia
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found is a narrative nonfiction book by Suketu Mehta
, published in 2004, about the India
n city of Mumbai
("Bombay"). It was published in hardcover by Random House
's Alfred A. Knopf
imprint. When released in paperback, it was published by Vintage
, a subdivision of Random House.
. Mehta
writes as a person who is at one level outsider to this magnificent city and on the other hand is the one who is born here and has lived his childhood in the city then known as Bombay. As a person who comes back with his experience of returning to the city as an adult, as well as a parent and resident. His family left Mumbai for the US in 1977, settling in the Jackson Heights, section of Queens, in New York City.
Mehta's return to Mumbai as an adult details his frustration with everyday day life in a developing nation. He frankly describes the slums and how they can crop up anywhere, even alongside the railroad tracks. In explaining the slums and squatting
, Mehta delves into the politics of modern Mumbai: the party divisions along Hindu
versus Muslim
lines, the criminal Mumbai underworld and the impact of the shocking 1993 Bombay bombings. He meets with murderous gangsters as well as prominent politician Bal Thackeray
of the far-right party Shiv Sena
to give the reader the fullest view of a city seemingly too large to have boundaries.
The book culminates in the story of a Jain
diamond merchant family. The Jain Diamond merchant methodically renounces his material life and sheds his wealth and family ties to spend the rest of his life as Jain Monk or wandering ascetics.
in 2005, and won the Kiriyama Prize
, an award given to books that foster a greater understanding of the nations and peoples of the Pacific Rim and South Asia. It won the 2005 Vodafone Crossword Book Award
. The Economist
named Maximum City one of its books of the year for 2004. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize
.
– Rohinton Mistry
, author of Family Matters and A Fine Balance
“Quite extraordinary – Mehta writes about Bombay with an unsparing ferocity born of his love, which I share, for the old pre-Mumbai city which has now been almost destroyed by corruption, gangsterism and neo-fascist politics, its spirit surviving in tiny moments and images which he seizes upon as proof of the survival of hope. The quality of his investigative reportage, the skill with which he persuades hoodlums and murderers to open up to him, is quite amazing. It’s the best book yet written about that great, ruined metropolis, my city as well as his, and it deserves to be very widely read.” – Salman Rushdie, author of Midnight's Children
and The Moor's Last Sigh
“Mehta writes with a Victorian novelist’s genius for character, detail, and incident, but his voice is utterly modern. Like its subject, this is a sprawling banquet of a book, one of the most intimate and moving portraits of a place I have read.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
, author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies
“Stunning . . . the account–fierce, engaged, coruscating–of a curious outsider who became, for two years, an intimate insider . . .[Mehta] explores the underside of the city with the inquisitiveness of a voyeur, the sensibility of a poet and the zeal of a private investigator. Mehta is none of those things and yet, like the best writers, he is all of them.” – Shashi Tharoor
, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Mehta is an urban ethnographer with an acute sensitivity to the peculiarities of his city . . . This fidelity to his interlocutors, and to their detail and circumstance, as much as the intelligence and brightness of Mehta’s own prose, makes Maximum City an extraordinary debut – a debut that will rival Arundhati Roy
’s in fiction.”
– The Nation
“[Mehta’s] sophisticated voice conveys postmodern Bombay with a carefully calibrated balance of wit and outrage, harking back to such great Victorian urban chroniclers as Dickens and Mayhew.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“In his new book, Suketu Mehta writes an epic biography of his childhood city, and it’s as luscious as a cold mango lassi on a sweltering day . . . Through his fluid writing, he establishes the culture and modern history of a city torn by Hindu-Muslim strife, but where culture and beauty still flourish . . . A vivid and textured portrait of Bombay.” – New York Post
“The passions and secrets of the throbbing megalopolis come alive as Suketu Mehta steps into its back alleys and dance bars, its fantasy factories and drawing rooms . . . Every city has its chronicler . . . now Bombay gets its Boswell, his chronicle as sprawling and enchanting as his subject.” – India Today
“Suketu Mehta has done the impossible: he has captured the city of Bombay on the page, and done it in technicolor. Like Zola
’s Paris and the London of Dickens, it will be difficult for me to visit Bombay without thinking of Maximum City and the enormous delight I had when I inhabited its pages.”
– Abraham Verghese
, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner
“Along with V. S. Naipaul
’s India: A Million Mutinies Now, Maximum City is probably the greatest non-fiction book written about India.”
–Akhil Sharma, author of An Obedient Father
“Maximum City is the remarkable debut of a major new Indian writer. Humane and moving, sympathetic but outspoken, it’s a shocking and sometimes heartbreaking book, teeming with extraordinary stories. It is unquestionably one of the most memorable non-fiction books to come out of India for many years, and there is little question that it will become the classic study of Bombay.”
– William Dalrymple, author of White Mughals
and In Xanadu
“Like one of Bombay’s teeming chawls, Maximum City is part nightmare and part millennial hallucination, filled with detail, drama and a richly varied cast of characters. In his quest to plumb both the grimy depths and radiant heights of the continent that is Bombay, Suketu Mehta has taken travel writing to an entirely new level. This is a gripping, compellingly readable account of a love affair with a city: I couldn’t put it down.” – Amitav Ghosh
, author of In an Antique Land and The Glass Palace
“Brave, honest, and addictive: Maximum City is narrative non-fiction at its best. Mehta de-exoticizes as he mesmerizes, finding humanity in killers, actresses, and civil servants, and leading us inexorably to the sight of our our own reflections in the fractured mirror of his great city, Bombay.” – Mohsin Hamid
, author of Moth Smoke
Suketu Mehta
Suketu Mehta is a writer based in New York City. He was born in Kolkata, India, and raised in Bombay where he lived until his family moved to the New York area in 1977. He has attended New York University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.His autobiographical account of his experiences...
, published in 2004, about the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n city of Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
("Bombay"). It was published in hardcover by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
's Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
imprint. When released in paperback, it was published by Vintage
Vintage
Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product . A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines, it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and...
, a subdivision of Random House.
Overview
The book combines elements of memoir, travel writing as well as socio-political analysis of the history and people of MumbaiMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
. Mehta
writes as a person who is at one level outsider to this magnificent city and on the other hand is the one who is born here and has lived his childhood in the city then known as Bombay. As a person who comes back with his experience of returning to the city as an adult, as well as a parent and resident. His family left Mumbai for the US in 1977, settling in the Jackson Heights, section of Queens, in New York City.
Mehta's return to Mumbai as an adult details his frustration with everyday day life in a developing nation. He frankly describes the slums and how they can crop up anywhere, even alongside the railroad tracks. In explaining the slums and squatting
Squatting
Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....
, Mehta delves into the politics of modern Mumbai: the party divisions along Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
versus Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
lines, the criminal Mumbai underworld and the impact of the shocking 1993 Bombay bombings. He meets with murderous gangsters as well as prominent politician Bal Thackeray
Bal Thackeray
Bal Keshav Thackeray , popularly known as Balasaheb Thackeray, is an Indian politician, founder and chief of the Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, and Marathi ethnocentric party active mainly in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.Born in Pune, Thackeray began his professional career...
of the far-right party Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena
Shiv Sena , is a political party in India founded on 19 June 1966 by Balasaheb Thackeray. It is currently headed by Thackeray's son, Uddhav Thackeray...
to give the reader the fullest view of a city seemingly too large to have boundaries.
The book culminates in the story of a Jain
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
diamond merchant family. The Jain Diamond merchant methodically renounces his material life and sheds his wealth and family ties to spend the rest of his life as Jain Monk or wandering ascetics.
Awards
Maximum City was a finalist for the Pulitzer PrizePulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in 2005, and won the Kiriyama Prize
Kiriyama Prize
The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...
, an award given to books that foster a greater understanding of the nations and peoples of the Pacific Rim and South Asia. It won the 2005 Vodafone Crossword Book Award
Vodafone Crossword Book Award
Vodafone Crossword Book Award is an Indian book award sponsored by Vodafone and Crossword Bookstores. It is India's biggest private sector award. The Award was instituted in 1998 with the intention of competing with The Booker Prize, Commonwealth Writers' Prize or The Pulitzer Prize.The award...
. The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
named Maximum City one of its books of the year for 2004. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize
Samuel Johnson Prize
The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the most prestigious prizes for non-fiction writing. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award and based on an anonymous donation. The prize is named after Samuel Johnson...
.
Reviewers' quotes
“In Maximum City, Suketu Mehta has given us a brilliant book. He writes fearlessly about the horror and wonder that is Bombay. One by one, he reveals its multiple personalities: maleficent Bombay, bountiful Bombay, beckoning temptress of hope, manufacturer of despair–city of dreams and nightmare city. Best of all, reading this book helps one understand why Bombay can be an addiction.”– Rohinton Mistry
Rohinton Mistry
Rohinton Mistry is an Indian-born Canadian writer in English. Residing in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Mistry is of Indian origin, originally from Mumbai, Zoroastrian and belongs to the Parsi community. Mistry is a Neustadt International Prize for Literature laureate .-Biography:Rohinton Mistry was...
, author of Family Matters and A Fine Balance
A Fine Balance
A Fine Balance is the second book by Rohinton Mistry. Set in Mumbai, India between 1975 and 1984 during the turmoil of The Emergency, a period of expanded government power and crackdowns on civil liberties, this book is about four characters from varied backgrounds—Dina Dalal, Ishvar Darji,...
“Quite extraordinary – Mehta writes about Bombay with an unsparing ferocity born of his love, which I share, for the old pre-Mumbai city which has now been almost destroyed by corruption, gangsterism and neo-fascist politics, its spirit surviving in tiny moments and images which he seizes upon as proof of the survival of hope. The quality of his investigative reportage, the skill with which he persuades hoodlums and murderers to open up to him, is quite amazing. It’s the best book yet written about that great, ruined metropolis, my city as well as his, and it deserves to be very widely read.” – Salman Rushdie, author of Midnight's Children
Midnight's Children
Midnight's Children is a 1981 book by Salman Rushdie about India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial literature and magical realism...
and The Moor's Last Sigh
The Moor's Last Sigh
The Moor's Last Sigh is the fifth novel by Salman Rushdie, and was published in 1995. Set in the Indian cities of Bombay and Cochin , it is the first major work that Rushdie produced after the The Satanic Verses affair, and thus is referential to that circumstance in many ways, especially the...
“Mehta writes with a Victorian novelist’s genius for character, detail, and incident, but his voice is utterly modern. Like its subject, this is a sprawling banquet of a book, one of the most intimate and moving portraits of a place I have read.” – Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri is a Bengali American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies , won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake , was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna, which she says are both...
, author of The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies
“Stunning . . . the account–fierce, engaged, coruscating–of a curious outsider who became, for two years, an intimate insider . . .
Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala...
, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Mehta is an urban ethnographer with an acute sensitivity to the peculiarities of his city . . . This fidelity to his interlocutors, and to their detail and circumstance, as much as the intelligence and brightness of Mehta’s own prose, makes Maximum City an extraordinary debut – a debut that will rival Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
’s in fiction.”
– The Nation
“
“In his new book, Suketu Mehta writes an epic biography of his childhood city, and it’s as luscious as a cold mango lassi on a sweltering day . . . Through his fluid writing, he establishes the culture and modern history of a city torn by Hindu-Muslim strife, but where culture and beauty still flourish . . . A vivid and textured portrait of Bombay.” – New York Post
“The passions and secrets of the throbbing megalopolis come alive as Suketu Mehta steps into its back alleys and dance bars, its fantasy factories and drawing rooms . . . Every city has its chronicler . . . now Bombay gets its Boswell, his chronicle as sprawling and enchanting as his subject.” – India Today
“Suketu Mehta has done the impossible: he has captured the city of Bombay on the page, and done it in technicolor. Like Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
’s Paris and the London of Dickens, it will be difficult for me to visit Bombay without thinking of Maximum City and the enormous delight I had when I inhabited its pages.”
– Abraham Verghese
Abraham Verghese
Abraham Verghese is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He was born in Ethiopia to parents from Kerala, India who worked as teachers. He is a Syro-Malabar Christian...
, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner
“Along with V. S. Naipaul
V. S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad "V. S." Naipaul, TC is a Nobel prize-winning Indo-Trinidadian-British writer who is known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism...
’s India: A Million Mutinies Now, Maximum City is probably the greatest non-fiction book written about India.”
–Akhil Sharma, author of An Obedient Father
“Maximum City is the remarkable debut of a major new Indian writer. Humane and moving, sympathetic but outspoken, it’s a shocking and sometimes heartbreaking book, teeming with extraordinary stories. It is unquestionably one of the most memorable non-fiction books to come out of India for many years, and there is little question that it will become the classic study of Bombay.”
– William Dalrymple, author of White Mughals
White Mughals
White Mughals is a 2002 history book by William Dalrymple.Its Dalrymple's fifth major book.-Summary:The book is a work of social history about the warm relations that existed between the British and some Indians in the 18th and early 19th century, when one in three British men in India was married...
and In Xanadu
In Xanadu
In Xanadu is a 1989 travel book by William Dalrymple.Unlike typical travel books, In Xanadu traces the path taken by Marco Polo from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the site of Shangdu, famed as Xanadu in English literature, in Inner Mongolia, China.The book begins with William...
“Like one of Bombay’s teeming chawls, Maximum City is part nightmare and part millennial hallucination, filled with detail, drama and a richly varied cast of characters. In his quest to plumb both the grimy depths and radiant heights of the continent that is Bombay, Suketu Mehta has taken travel writing to an entirely new level. This is a gripping, compellingly readable account of a love affair with a city: I couldn’t put it down.” – Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh , is a Bengali Indian author best known for his work in the English language.-Life:Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St...
, author of In an Antique Land and The Glass Palace
“Brave, honest, and addictive: Maximum City is narrative non-fiction at its best. Mehta de-exoticizes as he mesmerizes, finding humanity in killers, actresses, and civil servants, and leading us inexorably to the sight of our our own reflections in the fractured mirror of his great city, Bombay.” – Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid
Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani author best known for his novels Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist .- Biography :...
, author of Moth Smoke
External links
- Suketu Mehta's official website
- http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0375403728Publisher Random HouseRandom HouseRandom House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
website] - Interview with the Wall Street Journal
- Lettre Ulysses Award Biography Page on Suketu Mehta