Maximum City is a narrative nonfiction book by Suketu Mehta, published in 2004. Mehta grew up in India until he moved to New York with his parents at age fourteen. Maximum City is based on his personal experience on his return to Bombay as an adult, in addition to extensive research. He portrays the city through interviews and slice-of-life shadowing. He uses the immersive feel of the city to comment on broader political, social, and infrastructural issues. It was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times Book Review says of his work: “narrative reporting at its finest, probably the best work of nonfiction to come out of India in recent years. . . . Mehta succeeds so brilliantly in taking the pulse of this riotous urban jungle.”

The book is primarily concerned with Mehta’s return. He spent much of his childhood in Bombay and is now approaching it as an adult, complete with an American education. His family originally immigrated to New York for work, and he is now returning in 1998, twenty-one years later. This insider-outsider perspective informs how he sees the city upon his return. The book weaves his personal experience of the city with people who witnessed its change, as well as the lives of everyday residents in a variety of social and financial situations.

IN ENGLISH