Shocking the world of literature to its very core, somehow the National Book Awards failed to recognize R. Kelly's "Soulacoaster" as the best non-fiction book of 2012; rather, journalist Katherine Boo took home the 2012 award for non-fiction with her debut work, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity."

Boo is already a Pulitzer Prize winner herself for her work as a journalist and currently works at the New Yorker. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" focuses on a boy living in a Mumbai slum. She said that she was thankful to be given the chance to tell the story, which would have been ignored if she hadn't written it.

"If this prize means anything," Boo said, "it is that small stories in so-called hidden places matter because they implicate and complicate what we consider to be the larger story, which is the story of people who do have political and economic powers."

The nonfiction category was filled an preternaturally a strong field of finalists in 2012, including Robert Caro's latest book on Lyndon Johnson and the late Anthony Shadid's "House of Stone."

As the National Book Awards celebrated its 63rd anniversary, the ceremony packed about 670 guests into the lavish Cipriani restaurant on Wall Street. To be eligible for an award, a book must have been written by a United States citizen. Winners received $10,000 and a bronze statue.

"We weren't surprised at all by the win - 'Forevers' is a stunning, must-read account of life in Annawadi, a Mumbai slum where unbelievable atrocities are an everyday occurence. Upon the book's publication in February of this year, EW's Jeff Giles predicted Boo's book would be 'a conversation starter, an award winner,'" said Entertainment Weekly in response to news of Boo's win.

Based on three years of uncompromising reporting, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers," focuses on the slum of Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. Boo follows a revolving cast of characters looking to capitalize on India's impending prosperity.

There's Abdul, "a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, [who] sees 'a fortune beyond counting' in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, [who identifies] an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption." There's Asha's "sensitive, beautiful daughter-Annawadi's 'most-everything girl,'" who, with a little luck, "will soon become its first female college graduate."

Boo keeps her eye at ground level following "even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief." According to Boo, no matter the money, everyone in the slum seems convinced they'll attain the good life - which, they call "the full enjoy" - someday.

As scandal and tragedy erupt, Boo keeps her eyes wide open.

"Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi," says Random House.