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One night seven years ago, I returned to my home in Islamabad to find security agents at my door. They handed me an expulsion later and gave me 72 hours to leave. I was stunned. I had been in Pakistan for a decade. I couldn’t figure out what I had done.
#NineLivesOfPakistan
#NineLivesOfPakistan
Over the next three days, all my attempts to stay in the country failed. Doors closed in my face. Intelligence agents detained me and locked me into a hotel room. But my troubles were just one small part of a far bigger story.
For years, people had predicted the end of Pakistan. It is the country where Malala was shot, bin Laden was killed, and Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. But Pakistan survives — a country caught between great promise and the forces that thwart it.
I wanted to tell the story through nine Pakistanis who lived, and often died, through the dramas of recent decades. A tribal leader at his fort. A cop in the slums. A human rights heroine who took on the generals. Through them, the country revealed itself.
The result is a book, The Nine Lives of Pakistan. Just before it was finished, a stranger reached out – a former spy who promised to answer the question that had haunted me for years: why was I kicked out?
The Nine Lives of Pakistan is published by @BloomsburyBooks in the UK on Sept. 3 and in India on Sept. 18, and by @wwnorton in the US on Nov. 17.
If you'd like to pre-order (UK): Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nine-Lives-Pakistan-Dispatches-Divided-ebook/dp/B0877D3XQ4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Declan+walsh&qid=1597069634&sr=8-1; Waterstones https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-nine-lives-of-pakistan/declan-walsh/9781408868461; Foyles https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/history-politics/the-nine-lives-of-pakistan,declan-walsh-9781408868461
To pre-order for the US (also a beautiful cover): https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393249910
Pakistani readers — The Nine Lives of Pakistan can be pre-ordered from Liberty Books using this link. https://libertybooks.com/the-nine-lives-of-pakistan:-dispatches-from-a-divided-nation-paperback
