NEW YORK, Sept 21: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has signed a book deal with the Harper and Collins publishing giant estimated at $500,000, a local newspaper said on Friday.

(Ms Bhutto who was scheduled to arrive in New York on Friday morning is reported to have postponed her visit to the Big Apple, but she will be visiting Washington from Sept 26.) “Pakistan is an increasingly volatile place, and Ms Bhutto’s book is an eye-opening look at the mistakes we’ve made in the region and what we can do to correct them — as well as what the consequences would be if we don’t,”

Harper Collins executive editor Tim Duggan told the New York Post.

“It’s the kind of book that can actually have an impact on how events unfold in the Middle East and beyond,” Mr Duggan said.

He said he bought the book proposal after hearing the exiled former Pakistani leader deliver an address at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He said the book, expected to be out in the spring, was to be called “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West,” and would be part memoir and part political treatise.