B & N Review's Songs of Blood & Sword

In September 1996, a 14-year-old Fatima Bhutto hid in a windowless dressing room, shielding her baby brother while shots rang out in the streets outside the family home in Karachi. This was the evening that her father Murtaza was murdered, along with six of his associates. In December 2007, Benazir Bhutto, Fatima's aunt, and the woman she had publicly accused of ordering her father's murder, was assassinated in Rawalpindi. It was the latest in a long line of tragedies for one of the world's best-known political dynasties.

Songs of Blood and Sword tells the story of a family of rich feudal landlords—the proud descendants of a warrior caste—who became power brokers in the newly created state of Pakistan. It is an epic tale full of the romance and legend of feudal life, the glamour and license of the international political elite and ultimately, the tragedy of four generations of a family defined by a political idealism that would destroy them.

The history of this extraordinary family mirrors the tumultuous events of Pakistan itself, and the quest to find the truth behind her father's murder has led Fatima to the heart of her country's volatile political establishment. It is the history of a nation from Partition through the struggle with India over Kashmir, the Cold War, through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan up to the post 9/11 'War on Terror.' It is also a book about a daughter's love for her father and her search to uncover, and to understand, the truth of his life and death. A work of international significance,Songs of Blood and Sword establishes journalist and poet Fatima Bhutto as a brave and passionate campaigner.

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

"Brilliant, beautiful, and outspoken, Fatima Bhutto adds fuel to the feud within Pakistan’s warring dynasty...The book [Songs of Blood and Sword] is at once a heartbreaking love story between father and daughter; a pilgrimage across the globe to fill in the missing pieces about her father and the Bhutto family’s history; an autopsy of Pakistan’s corrupt ruling elite; and Fatima’s take on the ills at the heart of Pakistan’s relationship to the West. It’s also a riveting political tale filled with cliff-hangers and pathos."
—Vogue


"Fatima Bhutto has dug deep, bravely confronted those in power and searched far and wide for answers and understanding."

—New York Journal of Books

"…a lucid and engaging account of a nation and a family."

—Publisher's Weekly

"A bleak, disturbing picture of a country of strategic importance to American foreign policy."

—Kirkus

"Moving, witty...a uniquely fascinating, wonderfully well-constructed memoir from the heart of the most violent and Borgia-like of the South Asian dynasties."

—William Dalrymple, The Financial Times

"A story with dazzling twists and turns told by a true-blue member of the Bhutto fold."
—The Independent

"In clear and unpretentious prose [Songs of Blood and Sword] gives a vivid impression of the brutal and corrupt world of Pakistani power politics, which has resulted in the violent deaths of four members of the Bhutto dynasty in the past 31 years."
—Roderick Matthews, Guardian

"Fatima Bhutto writes a compelling account that is both political and personal. Her life is proof that in Pakistan, torn apart by American diktat and local avarice, the political is the personal. Her passion and integrity ring out on every page. If you don't understand what is happening to Pakistan and Afghanistan, you soon will."
—Charles Glass, former ABC News Chief Middle East Correspondent, author of Tribes with Flags and Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation

Source: http://www.nationbooks.org/book/210/Songs%20of%20Blood%20and%20Sword