Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

Winner of the 2021 Overseas Press Club of America Cornelius Ryan AwardThe former New York Times Pakistan bureau chief paints an arresting, up-close portrait of a fractured country.Declan Walsh is one of the New York Timess most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals.On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanisa chieftain readying for war at his desert fort, a retired spy skulking through the borderlands, and a crusading lawyer risking death for her beliefs, among others. Through these nine lives he describes a country on the brinka place of creeping extremism and political chaos, but also personal bravery and dogged idealism that defy easy stereotypes.Unbeknownst to Walsh, however, an intelligence agent was tracking him. Written in the aftermath of Walshs abrupt deportation, The Nine Lives of Pakistan concludes with an astonishing encounter with that agent, and his revelations about Pakistans powerful security state. Intimate and complex, attuned to the centrifugal forces of history, identity, and faith, The Nine Lives of Pakistan offers an unflinching account of life in a precarious, vital country.