Fatima Bhutto up for book prize

LONDON: Fatima Bhutto, the activist niece of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has been nominated for a leading literary prize, which comes with a winner’s cheque of £30,000.
Fatima Bhutto’s first novel, The Shadow Of The Crescent Moon, is one of 20 books longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Fatima Bhutto, who was educated at the London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), published her first book, a collection of poetry, when she was 15. Her aunt Benazir Bhutto studied at Oxford. Fatima Bhutto has become a regular on London’s literary scene and she has delivered high profile lectures to audience in London. She has been invited to high profile literary events in India, UK and America. She has expressed her views candidly and has been highly critical of her aunt’s uncle Asif Ali Zardari. She has alleged that her own aunt Benazir Bhutto failed to investigate her father Murtaza Bhutto’s death and has alleged that the then PPP government was complicit in her father’s assassination in Karachi. His killers remain at large.
Fatima Bhutto has shunned Pakistan’s traditional politics but she has kept herself involved in non-governmental organizational work. According to a press release, other nominees include Booker Prize-winner Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam.
Also in the running is The Strangler Vine - a mystery set in 19th century British India - written by M.J. Carter who, as Miranda Carter, has written award-winning history books including a biography of spy Anthony Blunt. Helen Fraser, who chairs the judging panel which includes Professor Mary Beard and newsreader Sophie Raworth, said: “The judges feel that this is a fantastic selection of books of the highest quality — intensely readable, gripping, intelligent and surprising — that you would want to press on your friends, and the judges have been doing just that.

There was a great deal of talent and exciting writing in the books that were submitted this year and we hope that, between now and the announcement of the shortlist on April 7, many readers will want to share the enjoyment we have had with these 20 terrific novels.”
The winner will be announced at the Royal Festival Hall in central London on June 4.