Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography

Prime Minister of Pakistan, Bhutto writes with poise and passion in this autobiography, both a catharsis and a coming to terms with her past. In the poignant opening chapter, she describes the brutal murder in 1977 of her father, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, by General Zia ul-Haq. Under Zia's 11-year military dictatorship, propped up by the CIA and the Reagan administration, the author was kept under house arrest, then imprisoned for years in a cell, where guards encouraged her to commit suicide. She writes lovingly of her brother Shah Nawaz, whose highly suspicious death may have been a CIA murder, she speculates. She is evasive or reticent on sundry personal matters, such as her arranged marriage in 1987. Reading Bhutto's reminiscences about prison, schooling at Harvard and Oxford and her valuable work during her political exile, the reader grows impatient to learn more about what she intends to do for Pakistan, but the book ends on the eve of her triumphant election in late 1988. Photos. First serial to People. (Mar.)