Katherine J. "Kate" Boo (born August 12, 1964) is an American investigative journalist who has documented the lives of people in poverty. She has received the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

(2002), the

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

(2012), and her work earned the

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

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 journali ...

for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

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

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' 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.

Early life and education

Boo grew up in and near Washington, D.C., after her

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

n parents relocated there due to her father's appointment as an aide to Representative

Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

. The family's surname, of Swedish origin, was Americanized to Boo from the original Bö. She attended the

College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest instit ...

for two years before transferring to and graduating summa cum laude from

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Boo 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 know ...

, a professor of politics and history at

Ashoka University Ashoka University is a private research university located in Sonipat, Haryana, providing a liberal education in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. It was founded in 2014 and is based on the model of collective philanthropy, ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

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 primarily covering United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine also publishes an annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which ser ...

''. 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 (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

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 relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...

. In 2002, Boo was a senior fellow at the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is an American Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal think tank founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security, technology, health, gender, ...

. She won a

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 in ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

, India. It won the annual

on November 14, 2012. In 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, Boo served as a judge for the American Mosaic Journalism Prize.

Awards

*2000

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

*2002 The Hillman Prize *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 (NBA) 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. ...

(Nonfiction), ''Behind the Beautiful Forevers'' *2012 Columbia Journalism Award *2013 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, ''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 American people of Swedish descent Place of birth missing (living people) New America (organization) National Book Award winners