'It's Not Religion': In 'The Runaways,' Bhutto Examines The Lure Of Extremism
"I was really trying to look at why a 19-year-old boy would give up everything ... in order, quite literally, to take up arms against the world," says novelist Fatima Bhutto.
What forces propel young people to give up everything to join a violent extremist movement like the so-called Islamic State? That's the question that drove Fatima Bhutto to write the novel The Runaways.
The book was born out of Bhutto's own frustration and sadness. "It had been years by that point — 15 years of the War on Terror — and of feeling utterly demonized everywhere,"
