Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Fatima graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern and Asian Cultures and Languages from Columbia University and received a Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in South Asian Government and Politics.
Fatima comes from a political background, her father Mir Murtaza Bhutto – an elected member of Pakistan’s parliament – was assassinated by state police in 1996. His sister, Benazir Bhutto, was Prime Minister at the time of his killing. Fatima is the author of two books, a volume of poetry published when she was 15 years old in her father’s memory a year after his death called ” Whispers of the Desert “ and a collection of first hand survivor’s accounts from the October 8, 2005 earthquake in Pakistan entitled ” 8:50 am “ Both were published by Oxford University Press. The proceeds from ‘8:50 am’ will be given back to child survivors of the quake.
Fatima currently writes a weekly column for Pakistan’s largest Urdu daily newspaper, Daily Jang, and its English sister paper, The News International. Her diary from Tehran is the second the papers printed; Fatima also wrote a weekly diary from Lebanon this past summer during the Israeli invasion.