What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 9 reviews

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

Declan Walsh

What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 9 reviews

The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

Declan Walsh

Rave
Julian Borger,
The Guardian (UK)
The acclaimed correspondent captures a country torn apart by military aggression and religious extremism, and tries to work out why he was expelled.
Rave
Amna Nawaz,
The New York Times Book Review
The question has confounded many: How does Pakistan stay alive?.
Positive
Tunku Varadarajan,
Wall Street Journal
Although Mr. Walsh acknowledges the big strategic questions, there isn’t a wonky paragraph in 300 pages. Instead he portrays Pakistan through the stories of nine emblematic people (the 'nine lives' of his title). A 10th life—Mr. Walsh’s own—is the thread that ties this cast together.
Positive
Rabeea Saleem,
The Irish Times (IRE)
For the most part Walsh avoids the pitfalls [of the typical foreign correspondent], stitching together a variegated collage of an oft misunderstood country through in-depth profiles of nine Pakistanis. The common threads between this diverse lot are their contribution to the country’s shifting political tectonic plates and the fact that most died violent deaths. It is somewhat ironic how in the world’s fifth most populous country most of the lives the book traces were tragically cut short.
Rave
Rahul Singh,
The Tribune India (IND)
... the author’s decade-long stint in Pakistan has resulted in perhaps the best book on that infuriating, troubled, yet fascinating, nation in recent years.
Positive
Bilal Qureshi,
The Washington Post
Walsh is an engaging guide.
Positive
Aatish Taseer,
Airmail
In chapter after chapter, Walsh teases out the moral schizophrenia of a place 'with layered complex identities that often looked different in public or in private.'.
Rave
Publishers Weekly
Journalist Walsh debuts with an immersive and splendidly written portrait of Pakistan based on the nine years he spent in the country reporting for The Guardian and the New York Times.
Positive
Kirkus
Working back from when he was mysteriously expelled from Pakistan in 2013, journalist Walsh portrays the paroxysms that regularly grip this troubled country.