SOURCE: Sidhwa, Bapsi, and David Montenegro. “Bapsi Sidhwa: An Interview.” Massachusetts Review 31, no. 4 (winter 1990): 513-33.

In the following interview, which took originally took place on March 26, 1988, and March 24, 1989, Sidhwa discusses Pakistani politics, issues facing Muslim women, contemporary Islamic literature, and the central themes of her novels.

This interview originally took place on March 26, 1988 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because of the Rushdie affair and radical changes which occurred in Pakistan in the interim, a follow-up interview took place on March 24, 1989. The follow-up questions appear first in the interview.

(march 24, 1989)

[Montenegro]: Could we begin by talking about how the sudden death of Zia and the subsequent election of Benazir Bhutto will affect the course of political life in Pakistan?

[Sidhwa]: Well, when Zia suddenly dismissed the then existing Parliament (elected on a non-party basis), he promised to hold elections on the nineteenth of November. This date was supposed to coincide with...