Maximum City

Bombay's story is told through the lives, often desperately near the edge, of some of the people who live there. Hitmen, dancing girls, cops, movie stars, poets, beggars and politicians - Suketu looked at the city through their eyes.

The complex texture of these extraordinary tales is threaded together by Suketu Mehta's own history of growing up in Bombay and returning to live there after a 21-year absence, and in looking through the eyes of his found the city within himself.

Part memoir, part journalism, part travelogue, and written with the relentless observation and patience of a novelist, Maximum City is a brilliantly illuminating portrait of Bombay and its people - a book as vast, diverse, and rich in experience, incident, and sensation as the city itself.

Winner of Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize - Non-Fiction 2005
Short-listed for Guardian First Book Award 2005
Short-listed for Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005

“Pick of the Week - 'If there's been a more striking snapshot of the changing face of Asia, I've never read it. With energy, wit and endless reserves of empathy, Maximum City leaves you desperate to see Bombay for yourself...' - Sunday Times... it is Mehta's enthusiastic and intrepid self at the centre of his narrative that lends his account its appeal and memorable poetic charge. - ObserverMehta's extraordinary, and extraordinarily rich book, is both testimony and warning; a snapshot of a city full of vitality and hate. - The TelegraphCombining an insider's knowledge with a visitor's detachment, he prises open the rotten underbelly of the city to expose an unforgettable picture of depravity, greed sectarian strife and corruption. This is a stupendous book - Mail on Sunday”

Pick of the Week - 'If there's been a more striking snapshot of the changing face of Asia, I've never read it. With energy, wit and endless reserves of empathy, Maximum City leaves you desperate to see Bombay for yourself...' - Sunday Times

... it is Mehta's enthusiastic and intrepid self at the centre of his narrative that lends his account its appeal and memorable poetic charge. - Observer

Mehta's extraordinary, and extraordinarily rich book, is both testimony and warning; a snapshot of a city full of vitality and hate. - The Telegraph

Combining an insider's knowledge with a visitor's detachment, he prises open the rotten underbelly of the city to expose an unforgettable picture of depravity, greed sectarian strife and corruption. This is a stupendous book - Mail on Sunday

Suketu Mehta is a fiction writer and journalist based in New York. He has won the Whiting Writers Award, the O.Henry Prize, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. His work has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Granta, Harper's Magazine, Time and Conde Nast Traveler. Mehta also co-wrote Mission Kashmir, a Bollywood movie.

Bombay's story is told through the lives, often desperately near the edge, of some of the people who live there. Hitmen, dancing girls, cops, movie stars, poets, beggars and politicians - Suketu looked at the city through their eyes.The complex texture of these extraordinary tales is threaded together by Suketu Mehta's own history of growing up in Bombay and returning to live there after a 21-year absence, and in looking through the eyes of his found the city within himself.Part memoir, part journalism, part travelogue, and written with the relentless observation and patience of a novelist, Maximum City is a brilliantly illuminating portrait of Bombay and its people - a book as vast, diverse, and rich in experience, incident, and sensation as the city itself.

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