Master Class: How to Read and Write Palestine with Fatima Bhutto
Master Class: How to Read and Write Palestine with Fatima Bhutto
2 Sessions: Saturday, October 19 and 26
12:00-2:00pm ET
Fatima Bhutto
Fatima Bhutto is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, her novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon was long listed for The Women's Prize. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, Vogue, Granta, and Zeteo where she is a contributor.
This is a two part class on how to read Palestine. As the writer Arundhati Roy says, there is no such thing as the voiceless, only those who are purposely silenced. Over the course of two sessions, I will introduce you to literary and political writing on Palestine that has formed my understanding on the subject. We will read and discuss non-fiction texts and essays by Raja Shehadeh, Suad Amiry, Mohammed el Kurd, Omar Barghouti, and Isabella Hammad among other writers. No prior knowledge on the subject is required and all age groups are welcome. You will receive reading packs and we will have time for questions. You can take one session or both. We hope to have guest speakers that will be announced closer to the time.
In the second session, we are grateful to have guest speaker Eman Basher. She is former English teacher for ninth graders, a Gazan mom of two boys and a girl, and a creative writer. Her work has been published in Vice Magazine, Electronic Intifada, The Washington Post, and Vittles.
Workshop Highlights:
Deep dive into non-fiction writing on Palestine
Guest speakers
Reading pack that will serve as an important resource
Scholarships are available. To apply, please fill out this form.
Fatima Bhutto is the author of the novels The Runaways (Viking, 2019), praised as “astute and searing” by Kirkus Reviews, and The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (Penguin Books, 2015), longlisted for Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her most recent nonfiction book is New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop (Columbia Global Reports, 2019, which argues that the West’s cultural influence is diminishing across the globe. Her first book is Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir (Nation Books, 2010) which deals with her father’s murder and the Bhutto family's history in Pakistani politics. Her father Murtaza Bhutto, son of Pakistan's former President and Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and an elected member of parliament, was killed by the police in 1996 in Karachi during the premiership of his sister, Benazir Bhutto. The Guardian wrote, “In clear and unpretentious prose it gives a vivid impression of the brutal and corrupt world of Pakistani power politics, which has resulted in the violent deaths of four members of the Bhutto dynasty in the past 31 years.” Bhutto’s journalism and essays have appeared in New Statesman, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, The Nation, Literary Hub and elsewhere.
In an interview with PopMatters on New Kings of the World, Bhutto was asked about her switch from fiction to nonfiction: “As a reader, I love both fiction and non-fiction. As a writer, some topics are only doable as fiction and others are clearly made for non-fiction. I’ve always been fascinated by the topic of culture, especially the politics of popular culture and soft power. I wanted to write about the rise of Asia and the politics behind its rising cultural giants because it seemed to be something we need to be watching at this moment in time.”
Bhutto was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and grew up between Syria and Pakistan. She graduated from Columbia University in 2004, majoring in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London in 2005 with a Masters in South Asian Government and Politics.
