Denmark. There is going to be an audio taping tonight, and if we get to that point, come to our audience microphone over here that way cspan and politics prose will get your questions recorded as well as our authors answers to them. And lastly if you could do us a huge favor fold up your chairs lee them against leave them against something solid, itll help us get to the book signing. Welcome to politics prose. My name is abby i run our instore events, and this evening we are so pleased to have with us Rafia Zakaria to discuss her new book the upstairs wife. Its her experience with the country she grew up in and she begins at Pivotal Moment in 2007 when [inaudible] one of her uncles had decided to take a second wife and the book really becomes this unique look at culture and politics and shes really showing a lot about the country through her own story. So her works has appeared youve probably seen it in aljazeera america, other publications, and shes also a human rights activist and on the board of Amnesty International usa. So tonight shes joined in conversation by [inaudible] whos a producer and reporter for nprs all things considered, and [inaudible] so please join me in welcoming both of them to politics prose. [applause] i think you need to hold that. Yeah, you do. Oh, she does . Sorry. Let me get my mic as well. Sorry. This is rafias first book talk, so this is a great privilege to have her in d. C. For the first discussion shes doing of the book. So thank you for this amazing book. I wanted to start with rafia as a columnist in pakistan every week she writes for the leading english newspaper there, and her work looks at human rights, womens rights, all kinds of discrimination issues. And im curious when youve written something as personal as this book is, what was the origin of sort of deciding to take the kind of writing you do every week and Say Something in the way that youve done here . Okay. Well, first of all, thank you everybody, for being here. Im sure you hear authors say this all the time writing is a lonely job. And so theres really Nothing Better than sitting in front of people who read your work and who are interested in it. But its rare that, you know i write mostly for a pakistani audience. Im a columnist for dawn which is the largest newspaper and a lot of the genesis of this book was in my interactions with women in pakistan who write to me every week sometimes in response to the columns. Its, you know, difficult in the United States to get people interest in a book interested in a book on pakistan. I was talking earlier to my p friend, and he was saying well you know, if you have a title that says the nukes are safe or, you know, more terrorists than anyone else, then you can sell a book on pakistan. But a book about pakistani women, particularly about karachi which is the city im from and seen through the eyes of women is a harder sell. So its so encouraging to see everybody here. You know, i envision this book as a way to show people what it feels like to be pakistani more than anything else. So the themes in this book are an effort to promote the emotional landscape of pakistan. Its i think, a dimension of the country that is lost in the narrative that is dominated by Security Issues especially here in d. C. , by terror by violence. Theres very little sort of exploration off the internet life that goes on behind closed doors. But that forms really the narrative of the country and the city. I mean, and you said that, you know, you had initially thought about doing something that would bring you to the emotional landscape maybe through fiction. Theres a lot of pakistani fiction writers and they have been able to do a lot of stories that are about families and individuals and their struggles. But ultimately, you chose to not only write a more literary piece, but also something thats deeply personal where you take your own familys a story and put it on the page. Thats all the women in your family from your grandmother to your mother to your aunt and to yourself. That decision, too was a difficult one to put Something Like a private life in pakistan which is very private in the public in the way that you have. Um, yes. It is difficult, and it continues to be a struggle. And i think that way i looked at it was that i had to be true to my commitment as a writer in that i wanted to present as honest as possible a story. That was true to my heart and that captured the experiences of people i love. But, you know sometimes that comes up against the expectations people have of you as well as the relationships you have with people. So its a balancing act. But i guess my strongest motivating factor was that i strongly believe that a lot of suffering results from silence and that because some of these private boundaries are not traversed, already a lot of women who might on some dimension go through similar situations that feel alienated or alone or that feel that their struggle is a singular one. And to have the story told, hopefully, is way for other women to share their stories and to realize that, you know, there are sort of universal strands of Human Emotion that unite us whether were pakistani or american. I mean the central theme of the book is being in love with someone who doesnt really love you the psalm way you love the same way you love him. And, you know thats something i think that everybody goes through. Or has gone through or will go through at some point. You talk a little bit about the central character in the book, which is your aunt who is also the title of the book, the upstairs wife, yes. What you mean by that and tell us a little bit about them if you want to read a little bit about your observation of what happened to her. Well, the central character is my aunt and only, the story revolves around her husband taking a second wife and her coming first coming home to what was her fathers house, to our house and what that was like to kind of, you know, as a child get snippets of what was going on but not really knowing what the matter was or why everyone was so upset or why she was so upset. So thats the central character. And i think through that i tried to explore this whole idea of public and private and how people, you know how theres a connection between the violence outside in pakistan and the violence in intimate relationships and how they can also tear you that can also tear you apart. So the portion that im reading right now is sort of the view from the outside. You know, in this neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else and they know that this man, my uncle, has taken a second wife and hes divided his home into multiple levels where your aunt lives on one level, and his new wife lives on the second. Absolutely. Absolutely. Im going to try to do this balancing act. Ill hold your mic for you. All right, thank you. With the arrival of second wife, the eyes of neighbors focus with rejuvenated fervor or my aunts newlyenlarged house. In the evening the women watch the lights turning on upstairs or downstairs the men watch the comings and goings of my uncle whether he ascended or descended the stairs between his two women. Propounding at length about his dutiful virility. The oddity of the household the only one on the lane where two women shared one man provided a safe conversation topic at their own dinner tables. A reprieve from nagging concerns about jobs and money and traffic and schools. Is he upstairs or downstairs tonight always managed to draw a laugh from the most harried of housewives, the most overworked of husbands. Thus, the newrycreated neighborhood of stragglers from bombay reunited on one short lane of houses in karachi had found a juicy drama that was reliable fodder for casual gossip. And i mean, whats interesting is that you take the those kinds of observations of what was happening in your familys life and interlace that throughout the book with the history of pakistan so the reader is getting both this kind of, you know sad and juicy i suppose as you described it in your words you know, the story of your family alongside the narrative of pakistans political leaders and the one woman who you write a lot about in the women which is Benazir Bhutto who i think Many Americans know as one of the only leading sort of female politicians in the world and of her time. She was a largerthanlife figure, and she also sort of loom over your book as the freest woman you know, you describe. Can you juxtapose your familys experience and the women in your life with Benazir Bhutto, a daughter of karachi known around the world . Yeah. I mean, you know, as a pakistani woman especially when living in america, that is probably one of the most frequent questions that im asked, is that oh, you know Benazir Bhutto was the prime minister. So, you know, in many ways pakistan that is a public face for many, a particular face of pakistani women. But i wanted to present her as how i saw her as a kid when she was getting married herself and what that was like, how i interpreted that as a girl growing up in catchy. Karachi. So, you know, more than anything here youve got an environment, my environment where choices are very circumscribed. I was definitely being raised to be married and have children, and, you know, i wanted very much for her not to do that cuz i wanted at least one example of a woman who was not doing what every other woman i knew was doing and was sort of, you know, their lives centered around marriage and childbirth. And so i remember watching benazirs wedding on tv and being sort of sad because its like okay, heres the freest and it is true, this is the freest woman i know and she also has to marry this man and, you know, to the child rafia, he wasnt a particularly good looking man. [laughter] i mean no political subtext whatsoever. But as a kid. And youre thinking, why is she doing this . Because i wanted at least one way to say, you know not everybody has to do this. Not everybody has to make these compromises and fit into these very constricted roles. And thats kind of the shadow because, i mean, it is through the lives of other women and the marriages that you see that you are, you know, interpret what your high is going to be like and your life is going to be like and the choices that youre going to make. So thats why shes a significant influence in the book. And also because this book, you know, very much you asked earlier about the origins. As a pakistani woman, you cannot help but look at whats happening and be sad and be, you know despondent about the way things are and be with upset about the fact that youre not seeing a reflection or that women are being erased from pakistan whether its the public spaces or the history or any of important dimensions of life. So i just got to this point where i felt that this was the only way to reclaim pakistan, is to present the story of pakistan through the eyes of women and that that in itself was, at least for me, the ultimate subversive thing that i could do is, you know, here i have story after story of women who i love who try to claim the country for themselves. And that includes Benazir Bhutto. And they were not able to do so. And so i wanted to tell story of the country in the struggles of those women because that, you know, i mean, i guess they say history is defined or written by the victors. Well, im writing the history first and hoping therell be victors next, you know . [laughter] and that women will discover come that women will overcome. Because they will see in a narrative like in this just how powerful and resilient they have been and that they can be and that, you know, they continue to push the system and continue to push the boundaries of what are often very constricted choices. When you said that a lot of the ideas in the book came out of your emails that you have with women readers in pakistan who write many to you every week from your column that has to do with some of the ways that you present the political history of pakistan some of the personal anecdotes that you share. Can you talk about how the kind of emails with your readers who are women is sort of strewn into this book and is part of this book . Definitely. I mean before i even say that i will say its in my acknowledgments too. But, you know pakistan and dawn, the newspaper that i write for is at the front lines of a society that is transforming and that is extremely violent. And i am just tremendously grateful for my editors who week after week really allow me to push the boundaries and write articles about women, about issues like polygamy, about issues like laws against adultery and all the other hinges that activists all the other things that activists are working on. But, you know more centrally than that, yes, im touched by the fact that, you know, pakistani women are out there. I mean they i get letters from university students, from women who work and women who are even within their own families fighting so that their daughters can work and have choices. Doctors in hospitals. And i wanted to sort of reflect that plurality in a book. You know, because as they say you know, i didnt want to present one story. I wanted you to be able to see as many stories as possible so that you understand that theres a mixture of, you know, of pushing and pulling. There are women, as youll see in the book, who come out on the streets, College Students who fight. And then there are women who retreat. And all of that is a part of pakistan. More essentially though, i think at this point in pakistans history issues like polygamy are very, very alive mostly because polygamy within the pakistani context is being presented as solution to destitute women. And the more authentic islamic way to live and arrange a Marital Relationship and i think that in those discussions of polygamy, you know theres a lot of discussions like what the quran says thats not allowed discussions like that. But theres no discussion of like the emotional ruin that arrangements like that can cause to women. So exploring marriages and exploring those intimate relationships was a way to sort of begin that conversation. And, you know, within the american context i think its also important because, you know, in a very different way the u. S. Is also engaged in looking at questions of what are intimate relationships, whats marriage, what are the boundaries of what we want as a society in different ways. And i think thats a way to sort of relate people who might not have any background in pakistan to sort of understand that our central impulse of wanting to be with someone or wanting to be the only person in someones life is universal a, you know . I mean, its the same whether its for my aunt or my friends here or myself or for many of you. I wanted to ask you, actually about what you just said which is that you wanted it to be more universal by looking at these questions of love, ultimately. You are on board of directors at amnesty usa and Amnesty International, and its very evident that these questions are so value to what you do in your so central to what you do in your oh work. But i also think you put together a book that is very literary and has quite a personal touch to it. One of things i was going to ask you to read a section in which rafia describes the man who founded pakistan, and hes credited as the sort of, you know, as the central figure in its history. But you actually decide to tell his story through the story of the wife who died before he came to what became fanning in 1947 became pakistan in 1947, and i wonder if you could read how he was also someone who had to lose love and marriage in his life to be a politician. Okay. Definitely. Sure. Yes. And to set this up a little bit more, you know another sort of theme in this book is migration. And this whole idea that we can never really go back to what we leave. And, i mean i think, obviously this is about migration in place, but i think its true, i think, for all our lives where, you know, you can never go back to being a kid, you can never go back to a time that existed before. And i think that that sort of is woven through this book in that im constantly, i was constantly growing up seeing people who longed for another place and were trying to rebuild it in this new country that was supposed to be home but that to them didnt feel like home m home. And then the reason i tell this is the founder of pakistan his story to the woman who he, in a way, left behind, is because of that, you know . Its because he was not just the founder, but he had a personal life and that in some ways the creation of pakistan involved a great personal loss for him. So [inaudible] died on february 20 1929. She was buried in one of bombays muslim cemeteries. It was here that mohamed visited her in august 1947 in the days before he left for karachi. The last days he would ever spend in bombay. Here the grave of the woman who he had lost for the sake of the country he had to create, mohamed was said to have wept. One year later he too would lie dying far away in newborn pakistan. In september 1948 almost 20 years after the death of his wife, he too would be gone. Mohamed had gained a country but lost his love. He was buried in the center of karachi, and over his grave a pristine white mausoleum of marble was built. Its unblemished dome could be seen far away. In death he belonged to pakistan. The children of pakistan learned a lot about him about his education, his political acumen, his strategic prowess, but we never learned about his nonmuslim wife, about the woman he had loved. Its beautiful, thank you. Thank you. For reading that. And im curious too, with you know, the subtitle of book is an intimate history of pakistan, but weve had many books about the nukes and the political history and all of that. What you meant by wanting this to also have a historical record of this country that was founded 60 years ago the idea you felt knowing the intimate history was key to understanding the country. Yeah. I mean, you know before an american audience and ive taught, you know in american colleges, and i generally, you know, and i write for an american audience you kind of as a pakistani i imagine most imi immigrants feel this way want everyone to know the larger context of what youre talking about, you know . Instead of having the isolated nuggets of, you know pakistan is drone attacks pack san is alqaeda pakistan is taliban, to have a tacit feel for what the society is like. So i wanted to weave together both, you know, stories like we didnt pakistan today didnt just become pakistan today. And i wanted people to see that in sort of a cinematic scape of just human, human beings, of ordinary pakistanis. I mean, you know the other challenge often for me as a pakistani writer is that, you know, here im telling you this story of a very ordinary middle class family. Thats not a narrative. In general, no