This large reportage essay documents William T. Vollmann's encounters with poor people - from Cambodia to Afghanistan, from Japan to the Congo, from Ireland to Yemen. The author is an insect researcher among human hunters, turning chance encounters into a research project, asking probing questions, weighing and evaluating. He constructs his own theory of poverty from a kaleidoscope of microscopically precise observations, richly illustrated with his own photographs. "Poor People" is a unique exploration of our world. Above all, this book is a journey into the mind of one of the most unconventional writers of our time, who makes the universe of poverty his own.