A superb debut novel centred around the assassination of the Pakistani dictator General Zia.
Mohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan, in 1965. He graduated from Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer, but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism. He has written plays for the stage and BBC radio, and his film The Long Night has been shown at film festivals around the world. His first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel in 2008.
Zesty, highly inventive...Hanif is a gifted writer...His explosive
finale is brilliantly constructed
*Daily Mail*
Exuberant and satirical: this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal
legacy to Pakistan
*Observer*
Witty, elegaic and deliciously anarchic
*John Le Carré*
A Pakistan not reducible to generals, jets and jihadisa...a debut
novel shaped as much by the subcontinents fascination with history
and historical figures as by political thrillers in the tradition
of Forsyth and Le Carre.... Along the way there is plenty of humour
and slapstick... Cadet life is entertainingly evoked, overflowing
with japes, jerkoffs, hashish highs and liquored lows... The most
unexpected aspect of Mangoes is also its most compelling - the
wryly told story of a love affair between two cadets
*Guardian*
Entertaining.... darkly comic.... There are sharply observed
sketches of toadying ministers, mindlessly efficient security
chiefs, filthy prison cells, sex-mad Arab sheikhs and erudite
communist prisoners...as a piece of political satire, A Case of
Exploding Mangoes deserves a high mark
*Independent*
Pakistan's ongoing political turmoil adds a piquant edge to this fact-based farce spun from the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed General Zia, the dictator who toppled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto. Two parallel assassination plots converge in Hanif's darkly comic debut: Air Force Junior Under Officer Ali Shigri, sure that his renowned military father's alleged suicide was actually a murder, hopes to kill Zia, who he holds responsible. Meanwhile, disgruntled Zia underlings scheme to release poison gas into the ventilation system of the general's plane. Supporting characters include Bannon, a hash-smoking CIA officer posing as an American drill instructor; Obaid, Shigri's Rilke-reading, perfume-wearing barracks pal, whose friendship sometimes segues into sex; and, in a foreboding cameo, a "lanky man with a flowing beard," identified as OBL, who is among the guests at a Felliniesque party at the American ambassador's residence. The Pakistan-born author served in his nation's air force for several years, which adds daffy verisimilitude to his depiction of military foibles that recalls the satirical wallop of Catch 22, as well as some heft to the sagely absurd depiction of his homeland's history of political conspiracies and corruption. (May) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
Zesty, highly inventive...Hanif is a gifted writer...His explosive
finale is brilliantly constructed * Daily Mail *
Exuberant and satirical: this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal
legacy to Pakistan * Observer *
Witty, elegaic and deliciously anarchic -- John Le Carre
A Pakistan not reducible to generals, jets and jihadisa...a debut
novel shaped as much by the subcontinents fascination with history
and historical figures as by political thrillers in the tradition
of Forsyth and Le Carre.... Along the way there is plenty of humour
and slapstick... Cadet life is entertainingly evoked, overflowing
with japes, jerkoffs, hashish highs and liquored lows... The most
unexpected aspect of Mangoes is also its most compelling - the
wryly told story of a love affair between two cadets * Guardian
*
Entertaining.... darkly comic.... There are sharply observed
sketches of toadying ministers, mindlessly efficient security
chiefs, filthy prison cells, sex-mad Arab sheikhs and erudite
communist prisoners...as a piece of political satire, A Case of
Exploding Mangoes deserves a high mark * Independent *
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