Fatima Bhutto on her first novel and rumours of Bollywood debut

“Writing is always a long journey, no matter the genre. And since fiction was new territory for me, naturally the process was different,” says Fatima Bhutto, who has made her debut as a novelist with “The Shadow of the Crescent Moon”, after having been a nonfiction writer.

Published by Penguin, the novel is set in Mir Ali, a small town in the troubled tribal region of Waziristan, close to the Afghan border. The author wanted the town, the epicentre of the story, to be a combination and reflection of a lot of real locations in Pakistan and “The Shadow of the Crescent Moon” draws stories and experiences from real life.

Bhutto, granddaughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, informs, “When I was a journalist, I had travelled a lot. All the things that did not fit into articles, all the little moments you have with people, those stayed with me. The surge in this book came from that period of journeys. The scenery or the descriptions come from what I saw. So, even though it is fiction, ‘The Shadow of the Crescent Moon’ is not a fake story.”

She considers it important to look at the places in the book through people, and elaborates, “It is a novel about how we love in different ways, because in environments that are not stable, one has to learn to love and live in different ways.”

During her recent visit to India for the launch of her novel, she said that her purpose was, “meeting young readers and learning more about the country through her travels and conversations with people”.

The characters in “The Shadow of the Crescent Moon” are young and the novel conveys how war affects the imagination of youth. Dealing with the issues facing Pakistan, the politico-religious thriller tells the story of three brothers Aman, Sikandar and Hayat, and two women, Samarra and Mina, with elements of Taliban and drone attacks.

The brothers live in a white house, which they share with their widowed mother. They meet for breakfast at their house and soon after, the eldest Aman, recently returned from America, hails a taxi to the local mosque. The second brother Sikandar, a doctor, goes to check in at his hospital. His troubled wife Mina does not join the family that morning for no one knows where she goes these days. And the youngest, Hayat, the idealist, leaves for town on a motorbike. Seated behind him is beautiful Samarra, whose world has been overwhelmed by war.

Three hours later, their day ends in devastating circumstances.

Bhutto captures suffering and injustice through the lives of the women, who fight an everyday battle where they are the victims of a bad system. She states that the women in her book break stereotypes of the image of Pakistani women and chronicle the sufferings they are put through by fundamentalists, the state, the society and their men.

“The women, as much as they have suffered violence at different phases of their lives, are strong and independent-minded. They use their voice regardless of the consequence,” Bhutto maintains.

The author felt that the media had created a particular image of Pakistani women and people started to assume they are reserved, quiet and compliant. But, she says, she does not know any such women in Pakistan.

“On the contrary, they are very powerful in their own ways and have so many shades between them. The women I grew up with are all survivors and it takes something extraordinary to survive in a country such as Pakistan. And both Samarra and Mina (the characters in the novel) are very real to me. They are not fictional at all and share a strong spirit and an unwillingness to be absorbed by their environment,” she emphasizes.

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Exclusive: Fatima Bhutto on her first novel and rumours of Bollywood debut