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Fatima Bhutto - Pain, Power, and Politics: Making Sense of a Senseless Inheritance

In this conversation, Fatima Bhutto reckons with ghosts of her past. Many of us know Fatima as the author of novels The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and The Runaways, as well as her latest nonfiction work New Kings of the World. But over the course of an hour, we get a glimpse into the heavy history she has inherited as a member of the Bhutto family and political dynasty. While we unpack ideas of democracy and oppression, she takes us back to Pakistan: to her grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s vision of the country coming out of the shadow of colonialism and the rise of the global self. As we dive into the vision of a man who did not live to see his vision come to fruition, Fatima finds his spirit in the books of his library. We also hear about her early years in Damascus where memories of grandeur and exile are intertwined. Fatima does not shy away from the tragedy and weight of her past. She tells us of her father, Murtaza Bhutto’s brutal murder and her journey in coming to terms with her pain in writing her first book Songs of Blood and Sword. For Fatima, the pen is her sword; she deploys language to make sense of the past she has inherited and the complicated and interconnected world we live in today.

Produced by Imran Ali Malik, Farooq Chaudhry, and Zahra Parekh. Music by Adam Lotfi. 

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