The Nine Lives of Pakistan - Dispatches from a Divided Nation

An NYT bureau chief spent a decade inside Pakistan - then got deported. What he saw before they threw him out is in this book.
Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan Award, The Nine Lives of Pakistan is the most gripping foreign correspondent account of modern Pakistan written in English.

Declan Walsh, one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents, traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Balochistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He didn't write about Pakistan from a distance - he lived inside its chaos, its beauty and its contradictions for over a decade.

He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis - a chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs. Through nine such lives, he builds a portrait of a country that defies the headlines.

Written in the aftermath of Walsh's abrupt deportation, the book concludes with an astonishing encounter with the intelligence agent who had been tracking him, and his revelations about Pakistan's powerful security state.

What's inside:

• Nine deeply reported stories of real Pakistanis - from Waziristan to Karachi to Lahore's drawing rooms
• Post-9/11 Pakistan unpacked - extremism, political chaos, and the security state laid bare
• The ISI deportation story - and what the agent who tracked Walsh finally revealed
• A portrait that challenges Western clichés and shows Pakistan's personal bravery and dogged idealism
• Maps, illustrations and the kind of on-the-ground detail only a decade of reporting can give

For readers of non-fiction, students of South Asian politics, journalists, researchers, and anyone who wants to understand Pakistan beyond the headlines - this is the book. Nationwide delivery across Pakistan. Order now.

Format: Paperback