But If Writing About People

But If Writing About People Who Are Not Yourself Is Illegitimate, Then The Only Legitimate Work Is Autobiography; And As A Reader And A Citizen, I Don’t Want To Live In That World.

In My Kind Of Reporting Work, You Don't Parachute In After Some Big, Terrible Event, Which Is Important And Has To Be Covered, But Offers Only A Glimpse. It's The Kind Of Work In Which You Ask, What Is My Understanding Of How The World Works, And Where Can I Go To See These Questions Get Worked Out In Individuals' Lives? That Was Really The Question For Me: Whether I Had Anything To Add To What Had Already Been Written.

I'm Useless When I Meet Writers I Love - I Go Slack-jawed And Stupid With Awe.

As A Reporter, You Know The Tropes Of How Stories On Poverty Work In Any Country. A Reporter Will Go To An Ngo And Say, "tell Me About The Good Work That You're Doing And Introduce Me To The Poor People Who Represent The Kind Of Help You Give." It Serves To Streamline The Storytelling, But It Gives You A Lopsided Cosmos In Which Almost Every Poor Person You Read About Is Involved With A Ngo Helping Him. Our Understanding Of Poverty And How People Escape From Poverty, In Any Country, Is Quite Distorted.

It Seemed To Him That In Annawadi, Fortunes Derived Not Just From What People Did, Or How Well They Did It, But From The Accidents And Catastrophes They Dodged. A Decent Life Was The Train That Hadn’t Hit You, The Slumlord You Hadn’t Offended, The Malaria You Hadn’t Caught.