Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir

Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword is one of the most appropriate historical works on the complex drama of Pakistani politics since its independence. Delving into the complexities of its political history she presents it as impartial as ever, (if history is to be written it must be written in this manner.) Pakistan as a nation has suffered at the madness of power struggle and democracy still remains a distant dream…..

While this non-fictional work represents the harsh political scenario of the nation, at the same time it gives a voice to the dreams and hopes of a better society and democracy, her work itself is a testimony against the cruel political machinery of the country.

Leaving the politics of the nation apart, the book is also a personal reflection of the loss of a father and family; how a family has missed the normal way of living and how she has missed the experience of growing up as a normal kid. Every lines of her book carry the poetic suffering of a daughter at the loss of her father and family. The loss is immense, unbearable and unexplainable, what she gives us is just a fraction of her multitudinous suffering at the loss of her dear father who was her friend at times, her guide at moments but a dearly loving father at most of the times. The most touching moment of the book appears when Mir Murtaza struggles against death with his bullet ridden body and blood smeared face and Fatima kisses all over her father’ bloody face leaving aside his eyelids respecting a Lebanese superstition (It says you will be separated from anyone whose eyelids your lips brush). She was holding on to the hope of all the probable possibilities of saving her father including a Lebanese superstition. It shows a daughter’s deepest love for her father, of course the pain she felt then is beyond words to explain….



A well documented courageous work on Pakistan’s politics, the book gives us an opportunity to peep into the back stage of Pakistani political theater of cruelties. In this young author we have a new breed of Pakistani who visions Pakistan as different and wishes it to be so and works tirelessly towards the realization of her that dream which ultimately is a collective dream including the common Pakistani folks.