Monday 20th September 2010
Faith and the City
Fatima Bhutto – Songs of Blood and Sword
Dear Colleague
The University of Bradford’s School of Lifelong Education and Development in partnership with the Bradford District Faiths Forum has established the ‘Faith and the City’ programme. The programme is a series of thought provoking and challenging discussions, dialogues and discourses that will be led by speakers who are authorities and critiques in the broad field of religion and politics.
The purpose ofthis programme is to raise the level of debate amongstall communities and to encourage us to collectively think about difficult issues around cohesion, faith, politics and values.
The title of this event isFatima Bhutto – Songs of Blood and Sword
Speakers:Fatima Bhutto, Author and Journalist
Date:Wednesday 13th October 2010
Time:Registration, Networking and Book Signing from 5:00pm for a prompt start at6:00pm (finishing at 7:30pm)
Location:The Barn Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, Horton Building, University of Bradford, Richmond Road, Bradford, BD7 1DP
Tickets:£5 per ticket to be paid at the door
Click here for map and venue location
Refreshments can be purchased from the vending machines located in the Atrium, close to the Great Horton Road entrance of the University.
To request a ticket, please send an email to .
Yours faithfully,
Nasar Fiaz
Development Coordinator, Bradford District Faiths Forum
Description of talk
Fatima will be talking about her recent book,Songs of Blood and Sword, Published by JonathanCape, April 2010.
GRANDAUGHTER TO ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO, EXECUTED 1979
NIECE TO SHAHNAWAZ BHUTTO, MURDERED 1985
DAUGHTER TO MIR MURTAZA BHUTTO, ASSASSINATED 1996
NEICE TO BENAZIR BHUTTO, ASSASSINATED 2007
‘In September 1996, a fourteen year old Fatima Bhutto hid in a windowless dressing room, shielding her baby brother while shots rang out in the streets outside her 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 has 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.’
The book, Songs of Blood of Sword will be available to buy in hardback (softback released April 2011) priced at £20. Fatima will be signing books from 5pm - 6pm.Books will be available to buy after the event but there will not be an opportunity to have them signed after the event.
About the speaker
Fatima Bhutto (Photo Credit: Amean J)
Fatima Bhuttowas born in Kabul in 1982. Her father was Murtaza Bhutto, son of Pakistan's former President and Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and her mother is Fauzia Fasihudin Bhutto, daughter of former Afghanistan's Foreign Affair official. Her father was killed by police in 1996 in Karachi during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto.
Fatima graduated from ColumbiaUniversity in 2004, majoring in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 2005 with a Masters in South Asian Government and Politics.
She is the author of two books: Whispers of the Desert, a volume of poetry, was published in 1997 by Oxford University Press Pakistan. 8.50 a.m. 8 October 2005, a collection of first-hand accounts from survivors of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, was published by OUP in 2006.
Fatima writes a weekly column for Jang - Pakistan's largest Urdu newspaper and its English sister publication The News. She covered the Israeli Invasion and war with Lebanon from Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and also reported from Iran in January 2007 at the start of Iran-US tensions. She has written articles for the Los Angeles Times, Times of India, The Hindustan Times and Tehelka Magazine.
She has spoken at the Kitab Festival in Bombay in 2007, the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2008, and opened the Man Asia Literary Festival in Hong Kong this year. She is active in various social causes and has been a part of four election campaigns in Pakistan, including the most recent.
She lives with her mother Ghinwa Bhutto and her brother Zulfiqar Bhutto Jr. in the famous Bhutto family residence in Clifton, Karachi.