Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul in 1982. 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. She lives and writes in Karachi, Pakistan. She is the author of three books. Whispers of the Desert, a volume of poetry, was published in 1997 by Oxford University Press Pakistan when Fatima was 15 years old. 8.50 a.m. 8 October 2005, a collection of first-hand accounts from survivors of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, was published by Oxford University Press in 2006. Her latest book, published by Nation Books, is Songs of Blood and Sword.