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Musharraf to pen autobiography
The hard cover edition of the 352-page autobiography will reportedly hit the stands on September 26.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is about to tell his own story - an autobiography purportedly written by him will hit the stands in September.
In Line of Fire: A Memoir was "apparently" penned by Musharraf, The Nation newspaper said Friday.
The book "will be a detailed life story of the president with a first-hand account of the important events that shaped his life," the newspaper said, but did not quote any source.
Giving more details of the book, the report said the hard cover edition of the 352-page autobiography would be available in the market around September 26. The book is priced at $27.
Seeking re-election to the presidency next year amid myriad controversies, Musharraf is apt to give an account of his life and work, analysts said.
The book is most likely to be accompanied by, or followed by, translations in Urdu, a language through which he can reach the masses.
Only one president before him wrote his autobiography. The Sandhurst-trained Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan's Friends, Not Masters was published in 1967. The book was ghost written by Altaf Gauhar, a bureaucrat who was once Pakistan's information secretary and later became Khan's confidante.
Khan was ousted from power in 1967 after a decade and the book was a bestseller of that era.
While Khan's publisher was London-based Oxford University Press, Musharraf has chosen another British publisher, Simon and Schuster, the report said.
Musharraf has often spoken of his childhood in old Delhi's Neherwali Gali from where his parents took him to Pakistan at the age of three.
India may figure even more prominently with Musharraf's gingerly welcome to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at Lahore - he has denied reports that he had refused to salute the Indian prime minister.
His visit to Agra, where he failed to clinch the much-touted peace deal, his advocacy of the Kashmir cause, famously declaring: "Kashmir is in my blood" can be expected to find a prominent place, albeit with his frequently recycled peace plans with India.
Amid all this, Musharraf may go to town with version of what made him do a U-turn in Afghanistan after 9/11, ditching the Taliban regime and the joining the US-led global war on terror.
There might be a message for the Muslims, both at home and abroad - balancing it with a call to the West on what he has done to make Pakistan a moderate Muslim nation.
In the past, Musharraf has fondly recalled his years in Turkey, where his father was posted, and how he came to admire the Turkish reformer-statesman, Mustafa Kamala Ataturk.
With parliamentary elections due next year, Musharraf can be expected to justify his role in keeping "corrupt" politicians out of the country.
While Altaf Hussain of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto have been away for long periods, Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in 1999, struck a deal and led his entire family out of the country to live in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi royalty was known to have played a decisive role in arranging this and hosting the Sharif family for many years thereafter.
The autobiography may hit the stand even as Musharraf is himself widely perceived to do an encore on Ayub Khan. Like Khan, who floated the Convention Muslim League, Musharraf has blessed the Pakistan Muslim League, with the tag of "Qaid", trying to give it a head start in the electoral race.
