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.
Declan Walsh Bücher
One day in September, a decade ago, all eyes were turned in the same direction. Ten years later, where are we looking? How do we see things differently? From Ground Zero to Kampala to London to Mumbai, we still feel the impact. The way we interact, the way we travel, our relationship to media and technology -- all have been irrevocably changed. Granta 116 examines the consequences of the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, from a global perspective. Showcasing some of the most insightful essayists, fiction writers, poets and visual artists working today, Ten Years Later will explore the complexity of our perceptions of 9/11. The world changed -- but how?