A Case of Exploding Mangoes

A superb debut novel centred around the assassination of the Pakistani dictator General Zia. 
 
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2008.

Zesty, highly inventive...Hanif is a gifted writer...His explosive finale is brilliantly constructed

Exuberant and satirical: this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal legacy to Pakistan

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

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

Unputdownable and darkly hilarious. Mohammed Hanif is a brave, gifted writer

Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Grimly, intelligently comic as if written by an Asian Joseph Heller

If this rich stew of disparate ingredients puts you in mind of Salman Rushdie, you wouldn't be far from the truth. His work, along with that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller, is a low-key but persistent influence

An exciting, accomplished new literary voice

Somewhere in mid-air between Waugh and Rushdie (with an shade of Catch 22 hovering near by) this tremendous novel makes a tragicomic weather all its own

Justly Booker longlisted last year, this debut is a dazzling one-off

A true touch of originality ... showcases a promising new talent.

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.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE** 
 
'Exuberant and satirical: this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal legacy to Pakistan' Observer 
 
There is an old saying that when lovers fall out, a plane goes down. This is the story of one such plane. 
 
Why did a Hercules C130, the world's sturdiest plane, carrying Pakistan's military dictator General Zia ul Haq, go down on 17 August, 1988? Was it because of: 
 
1.Mechanical failure 
2.Human error 
3.The CIA's impatience 
4.A blind woman's curse 
5.Generals not happy with their pension plans 
6.The mango season 
 
Or could it be your narrator, Ali Shigri? 
 
A Case of Exploding Mangoes is sharp, dark, inventive and utterly gripping.

Mohammed Hanif

Belly-laugh-inducing. Sam Lypsyte funny. Faulty-Towers funny.The silliness is anarchic and profound…a ripping story and a rowdy piece of art

Alice Bhatti's Karachi is so alive with sensations that you can smell the sewers, hear the screeching of tyres, and feel the humidity

An amusingly anarchic tale of Karachi life

The patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments in Karachi are looking for a miracle. Junior nurse, ex-prisoner and part-time healer Alice Bhatti is looking for a job. 
 
With guidance from the working nurse's manual, and some tricks she picked up in prison, Alice starts work at the crowded hospital bringing help to the thousands of patients littering the corridors. But her new life isn’t easy and on top of everything else Alice impulsively falls for optimist and loveable good Teddy Butt - a ragtag law enforcement officer by night and a bodybuilder by day. 
 
Can Alice and Teddy live happily ever after? Will the hospital accept her unorthodox ways? It all seems unlikely, but then Alice Bhatti is no ordinary nurse and this is downtown Karachi where the unusual is ordinary …

Mohammed Hanif

Praise for Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

Belly-laugh-inducing. Sam Lypsyte funny. Faulty-Towers funny.The silliness is anarchic and profound…a ripping story and a rowdy piece of art

Relentlessly readable

Alice Bhatti's Karachi is so alive with sensations that you can smell the sewers, hear the screeching of tyres, and feel the humidity

Belly-laugh-inducing. Sam Lypsyte funny. Faulty-Towers funny.The silliness is anarchic and profound…a ripping story and a rowdy piece of art

Relentlessly readable

Alice Bhatti's Karachi is so alive with sensations that you can smell the sewers, hear the screeching of tyres, and feel the humidity

Belly-laugh-inducing. Sam Lypsyte funny. Faulty-Towers funny.The silliness is anarchic and profound…a ripping story and a rowdy piece of art

Relentlessly readable

Alice Bhatti's Karachi is so alive with sensations that you can smell the sewers, hear the screeching of tyres, and feel the humidity

Books by Mohammed Hanif

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