Mohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan. After leaving the Pakistan Air Force Academy to pursue a career in journalism, he worked for Newsline and The Washington Post, and in 1996 moved to London to work for the BBC. He has written plays for the stage and screen, including a critically acclaimed BBC drama and the feature film The Long Night. Hanif is a graduate of University of East Anglia’s creative writing programme. His first book A Case of Exploding Mangoes was published in 2008. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award, and won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. After 12 years in
England, in 2008 he returned with his wife and 10 year old son to live in Karachi, Pakistan, where he is currently the BBC’s special correspondent.
Read an interview with Muhammed Hanif for the Times Online
Read an excerpt from A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Read an article by Muhammed Hanif for The Guardian on returning to Pakistan
Read an review of A Case of Exploding Mangoes by The Independent
BOOK
A Case of Exploding Mangoes
A first novel of the first order—provocative, exuberant, wickedly clever—that reimagines the conspiracies and coincidences leading to the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed Pakistan’s dictator General Zia ul-Haq. At the center is Ali Shigri: Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of Fury Squadron. His father, one of Zia’s colonels, committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. Ali is determined to understand what or who pushed his father to such desperation—and to avenge his death. What he quickly discovers is a snarl of events: Americans in Pakistan, Soviets in Afghanistan, dollars in every hand. But Ali remains patient, determined, a touch world-weary (“You want freedom and they give you chicken korma”), and unsurprised at finding Zia at every turn. He mounts an elaborate plot for revenge with an ever-changing crew (willing and not) that includes his silk-underwear-and-cologne-wearing roommate; a hash-smoking American lieutenant with questionable motives; the chief of Pakistan’s secret police, who mistakenly believes he’s in cahoots with the CIA; a blind woman imprisoned for fornication; Uncle Starchy, the squadron’s laundryman; and, not least of all, a mango-besotted crow. General Zia—devout Muslim and leering admirer of non-Muslim cleavage—begins every day by asking his chief of security: “Who’s trying to kill me?” and the answer lies in a conspiracy trying its damnedest to happen . . . Intrigue and subterfuge combine with misstep and luck in this darkly comic book about love, betrayal, tyranny, family—and a world that unexpectedly resembles our own.