\'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.
In 2019, she appeared on the Solvable podcast series, featuring those working to solve the world\'s most intractable problems..
While working on Castaway Mountain , Saumya received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation\'s Bellagio Center, Blue Mountain Center, Carey Institute for Global Good, Sangam House, and Dora Maar House.
She has written for Forbes India , Mint newspaper, Outlook magazine, wsj.com, The Wire (India) , The Wire (China) and Bloomberg News, Among others.
She co-founded Vandana Foundation in 2016, a non-profit that provides microloans to entrepreneurs in Mumbai and rural Maharashtra.
About author(s): Saumya Roy is a social entrepreneur, journalist, and activist based in Mumbai.
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.
In a narrative instilled with superstition and magical realism, Saumya Roy crafts a modern parable exploring the consequences of urban overconsumption.
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.
As Farzana enters adulthood, her way of life becomes more precarious.
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.
Over time, her family starts to fret about Farzana\'s obsessive relationship to the garbage.
Among them is Farzana Ali Shaikh, a tall, adventurous girl who soon becomes one of the best pickers in her community.
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.
Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountains are covered in a faint smog from trash fires.
All of Mumbai\'s possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. -- Kiran Desai, Booker Prize Winner, author of Inheritance of Loss .
A stunning achievement. -- Publishers Weekly Castaway Mountain deserves every accolade. \'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
