
The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation (Hardback)
Declan Walsh (author)
£20.00
Hardback
368 Pages /
Published: 03/09/2020
- Not available
The demise of Pakistan - a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam - is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions.
He meets a crusading lawyer who risks her life to fight for society's most marginalised, taking on everyone including the powerful military establishment; an imperious chieftain spouting poetry at his desert fort; a roguish politician waging a mini-war against the Taliban; and a charismatic business tycoon who moves into politics and seems to be riding high - till he takes up the wrong cause. Lastly, Walsh meets a spy whose orders once involved following him, and who might finally be able to answer the question that haunts him: why the Pakistanis suddenly expelled him from their country.
Intimate and complex, unravelling the many mysteries of state and religion, this formidable book offers an arresting account of life in a country that, often as not, seems to be at war with itself.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781408868461
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 708 g
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
First-rate reportage ... Captivating ... Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. He knows how to interweave travelogue with an account of the relentless tensions that always threaten to burst through each vignette in the book. What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people -- Julian Borger * Guardian *
Walsh captures the heart of a country brutalised by years of military dictatorship, scarred by religious bigotry and crippled by conflicts that have left it prey to outside powers ... Walsh's instinctive sympathy for those committed to making the best of a bad lot shines through ... [Walsh] treats readers to some unforgettable profiles ... Rarely have revelations about Pakistan made for such good reading -- Farzana Shaikh * Literary Review *
[A] thrilling, big-hearted book ... [Walsh] plunges into the messy country beyond and threads the nation's recent history into the biographies of some of the extraordinary people he meets ... If Walsh's guts take him places others have not reached, his prose - vigorous, cockeyed and clear - brings it home to the reader ... A richly observed study of how humans respond to the extraordinary pressures of a sometimes-choking society; empathetic, but hard-nosed and never veering into hagiography -- Memphis Barker * Telegraph *
Clear-sighted and exhaustive, these dispatches paint a scrupulously layered portrait of a country that defies easy explanations * Irish Times *
Declan Walsh describes, with intellectual power and cool elegance, a much-misunderstood country. All those interested in South Asia and its complex politics and culture should read it -- Pankaj Mishra, author of 'Age of Anger'
'An irresistible combination of storytelling panache and in-depth knowledge; Declan Walsh brings vividly to life characters and situations that illuminate some of the most significant phases of Pakistan's history -- Kamila Shamsie, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction
A wonderful book that sets a new benchmark for non-fiction about the complex palace of mirrors that is Pakistan ... Walsh has a rapier wit, a talent for skilfully sketched pen portraits and a sharp eye for tragedy, paradox and absurdity. With The Nine Lives of Pakistan he has produced a beautifully, lightly, fluently written book that is as profoundly nuanced as it is sharply perceptive -- William Dalrymple
Walsh captures the heart of a country brutalised by years of military dictatorship, scarred by religious bigotry and crippled by conflicts that have left it prey to outside powers ... Walsh's instinctive sympathy for those committed to making the best of a bad lot shines through ... [Walsh] treats readers to some unforgettable profiles ... Rarely have revelations about Pakistan made for such good reading -- Farzana Shaikh * Literary Review *
[A] thrilling, big-hearted book ... [Walsh] plunges into the messy country beyond and threads the nation's recent history into the biographies of some of the extraordinary people he meets ... If Walsh's guts take him places others have not reached, his prose - vigorous, cockeyed and clear - brings it home to the reader ... A richly observed study of how humans respond to the extraordinary pressures of a sometimes-choking society; empathetic, but hard-nosed and never veering into hagiography -- Memphis Barker * Telegraph *
Clear-sighted and exhaustive, these dispatches paint a scrupulously layered portrait of a country that defies easy explanations * Irish Times *
Declan Walsh describes, with intellectual power and cool elegance, a much-misunderstood country. All those interested in South Asia and its complex politics and culture should read it -- Pankaj Mishra, author of 'Age of Anger'
'An irresistible combination of storytelling panache and in-depth knowledge; Declan Walsh brings vividly to life characters and situations that illuminate some of the most significant phases of Pakistan's history -- Kamila Shamsie, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction
A wonderful book that sets a new benchmark for non-fiction about the complex palace of mirrors that is Pakistan ... Walsh has a rapier wit, a talent for skilfully sketched pen portraits and a sharp eye for tragedy, paradox and absurdity. With The Nine Lives of Pakistan he has produced a beautifully, lightly, fluently written book that is as profoundly nuanced as it is sharply perceptive -- William Dalrymple
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