Author: Nicholas Schmidle
Publisher: Random House India
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788184000924
Description
Journalist Nicholas Schmidle worked in Pakistan from 2006-2008. Those two years have been arguably the most turbulent period of Pakistan’s recent history, a time when President Pervez Musharraf lost his power and the Taliban found theirs.
During his time there, Schmidle met and befriended some of Pakistan’s most wanted men, including Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the pro-Taliban leader who ran the Red Mosque and was killed in the famous siege in 2007, and Jamil Bugti, son of the legendary slain Baluchi separatist leader Akbar Khan Bugti.
In To Live or to Perish Forever, he provides a rare glimpse of these men, taking us on a journey through Pakistan from the rioting streets of its cites, to Baluchistan, where a fiery separatist war is being played out, to the Taliban camps in the North-West Frontier Province. Gripping, sympathetic, and eye opening, To Live or to Perish Forever is a valuable first hand account of Pakistan today. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the region.
REVIEW:
‘Foreign correspondence of the very best kind’.
- Steve Coll
‘The account of a natural traveler who has the language skills, temerity, and eyesight to arrive where outsiders rarely go and then to report revealingly on what he sees and hears. This is personal, information, empathetic, surprising, and entertaining book.’
- Steve Coll
‘The perfect primer on post-9/11 Pakistan. From depicting disenfranchised Baluchis to shady ISI officers, Schmidle humanizes what has become the world’s most dangerous country.’
- Parag Khanna
Contents
Introduction: Land of the Pure
1. To these Guys, you are all Infidels
2. Sell your Luxury goods and buy a Kalashnikov
3. Don’t Speak English in Public
4. Left alone in a Cave of Time
5. It just Sounds Awkward o Call myself a Pakistan
6. What was Wring wrong with Pkistan?
7. We have accepted the Challenge
8. The blood of our Martyrs will not go to Waste
9. If you don’t let us live in Peace, We won’t let you live in Peace
10. This Barbed wire Stands in the way of Democracy
11. Made like a Sandwich
12. No Mercy in their Hearts
Epilogue: The fear Factor Spoil the Fun
Notes
Acknowledgements