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Fatima Bhutto has spoken widely about leadership, in particular regarding women, feminism, globalisation, the role of violence in politics, climate change, soft power and culture, South Asia and the Middle East and press freedom amongst many other topics. Without a doubt, she is a highly accomplished, entertaining and passionate speaker.
Fatima Bhutto was born under curfew in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1982. Her father, Murtaza, was in exile from his home country of Pakistan whose military junta had executed his father, PakistanтАЩs first democratically elected head of state Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, three years before.
Though Fatima spent her childhood in Damascus, Syria before returning to Pakistan, politics and the violence that accompanied it was never far behind. In 1985 her uncle Shahnawaz Bhutto was murdered and her father, a member of parliament in Pakistan, was killed outside their home in 1996. In 2007, her aunt Benazir also lost her life violently.
Fatima Bhutto studied Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Columbia University before completing a Masters in South Asian Government and Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She published her first book, a volume of poetry тАШWhispers of the DesertтАШ (Oxford University Press) when she was 15 years old.
In 2012, Fatima Bhutto was selected to be a Young Global Leader for the World Economic Forum, one of 192 YGLs from 59 countries, all of whom were chosen for their outstanding leadership, professional accomplishments and commitment to society.
Fatima BhuttoтАЩs work has since appeared in The Financial Times, Granta, Vogue UK, The NewStatesman, Foreign Policy Magazine and The Guardian, among other publications. She is a columnist for Zeteo.
Fatima BhuttoтАЩs published works include a collection of first-hand accounts from survivors of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, Songs of Blood and Sword (Jonathan Cape) a non-fiction account of Pakistani politics and her family, a novel, The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (Penguin), which was long listed for the BaileyтАЩs Prize in 2014 and won the Prix de la Romanciere in 2014, The Runaways (Penguin) an explosive novel that poses difficult questions about radicalism and modern identity in a world on fire, and New Kings of the World (Columbia Global Reports), a book of narrative reportage about new arbiters of global popular culture, the rise of Asia and the betrayals of neoliberalism and globalisation. It is an important dispatch from a new, multipolar order that is taking form before our eyes.
Fatima has written on climate justice, the global south and the devastating impact of climate change on poor countries in The New York Times and the Guardian. Fatima Bhutto has been speaking about the impact of climate change on poor countries since PakistanтАЩs devastating floods of 2010.
She hosted the first series of Reframe for Al Jazeera in 2024, interviewing among others Dominique de Villepin, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of France and Yuli Novak, the executive director of BтАЩtselem.
