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• About the Author
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Written by Mohammed Hanif

• Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf
• On Sale: May 20, 2008
• Price: $24.00
• ISBN: 978-0-307-26807-5 (0-307-26807-1)

about this book

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.

“Hanif serves up a delicious smorgasbord of conspiracies, treachery and final coincidences . . . The novel is a witty, lyrical mix of hearsay and history that, in effect, reifies and rationalizes suspicions toward the United States and Pakistan’s own intelligence apparatus . . . Like during the Zia years, Pakistan is once again a frontline state endangered by political Islam. Perhaps someday Musharraf's reign will also similarly yield the sweet fruit of a novel.”—Fasih Ahmed, Newsweek (International Edition)

“Hanif weaves a sardonic, multilayered farce, darkly sending up tyranny, diplomacy and life in the military. [But] this grim caper does have a subtly serious side.”—Hephzibah Anderson, Bloomberg.com

“An insanely brilliant, satirical first novel . . . It took courage for Hanif to put anything in print about a country that’s changing by the minute, but A Case of Exploding Mangoes is as familiar and relevant this hour as any . . . When Hanif plays the book for comedy, he scores . . . But even as Hanif eviscerates, he writes with great generosity and depth. And perhaps he is at his best when he describes the relationship between Shigri and Obaid . . . A Case of Exploding Mangoes belongs in a tradition that includes Catch-22, but it also calls to mind the biting comedy of Philip Roth, the magical realism of Salman Rushdie and the feverish nightmares of Kafka. But trying to compare his work to his predecessors is like trying to compare apples to, well, mangoes, because Hanif has his own story to tell, one that defies expectations at every turn.”—Julia Slavin, The Washington Post

“A dazzling first novel . . . Hanif takes readers where no fiction writer of any nationality has taken them before . . . This is such fertile territory for fiction that you wonder why it hasn’t been ploughed more often.”—Giles Whittel, The Times

“A clever, subversive and unfailingly funny book . . . A wonderfully layered imagining of the story behind this pivotal moment in Pakistan's history . . . Hanif's portrait of a superstitious, compulsive, blindly egotistical and at times comically corrupt dictator is an absorbing exploration of the private life of a powerful figure in the tradition of Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat or Gabriel García Márquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch . . . The Case of Exploding Mangoes is much more than a whodunnit. Rather, its an expertly subtle examination of complex cultural layering: Sharia law over Baywatch over Umra in a country struggling with a newly prescribed Islamic identity . . . With its clever contextualisation of a key historical moment, it is a timely book which treads the line carefully between light and dark before reaching its chilling conclusion . . . Hanif's assured first book is illuminating for its insight into a past that very much informs the global present, and for the sheer joy of an exciting, accomplished new literary voice.”—Fiona McCann, Irish Times

“This brassy, savvy, comic debut is the latest in the thrilling new wave of Pakistani English literature . . . But it is the unashamedly populist timbre, the defiantly silly, knockabout humour and the sheer brio of A Case of Exploding Mangoes that mark it out as a new departure in Pakistani writing . . . Hanif combines a journalist’s gift of concise, punchy storytelling with an affable, laconic, breezy, believable protagonist who leads us into hard-to-reach corners of Pakistani society . . . It is the parallels between General Zia and President Musharraf that give the novel its political force . . . It ends my long wait (since Rushdie’s Shame in 1983) for an unashamedly fun page-turner set in my beleaguered and notoriously un-fun homeland.”—Sara Wajid, New Statesman

“A Case of Exploding Mangoes is something quite new in South Asian fiction: an entertaining and darkly comic political thriller which is also a thought- provoking satirical farce attacking the brutality, stupidity and hypocrisy of Pakistan’s military dictators . . . It is intelligent, witty and street-smart without being narrowly urban or elitist; pacey and exciting without being sensational; and showing an enviable humour and lightness of touch without succumbing to the sub-magic realist tricksiness which blights so much new Indian fiction . . . In particular, the book is remarkable for its darkly comic wit . . .  It throws the gauntlet down to a new generation of Indian writers. For the first time in this part of Asia, there is now serious competition out there.”—William Dalrymple, Outlook (India)

“A Case of Exploding Mangoes is enjoyably satirical about Pakistan’s military and political elite . . . Hanif expresses his anger at his country’s lack of democracy and shady dealings with the IUS in a witty and effective manner.”—Sameer Rahim, Times Literary Supplement

“A debut novel shaped as much by the subcontinent’s fascination with history and historical figures as by political thrillers in the tradition of Forsyth and le Carré . . . Cadet life is entertainingly evoked, overflowing with japes, jerk-offs, hashish highs and liquored lows.”—Priyamvada Gopal, The Guardian

“Mohammed Hanif's first novel is as grimly, intelligently comic as if written by an Asian Joseph Heller . . . A funny novel that persuasively promotes pacifism.”—Patrick Skene Catling, Daily Telegraph

“A zesty, highly inventive novel . . . [There’s] a winning and surprisingly tender dimension to Hanif’s mix of satire and slapstick . . . There is no doubt that Hanif is a gifted writer. His explosive finale is brilliantly constructed.”—Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail

“Shigri makes for a wry and appealing narrator with an eye for the absurdities of military life . . . Exuberant and satirical, this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal legacy to Pakistan.”—Francesca Segal, The Observer

“Assassination has long been an appealing subject for male novelists: Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male, Richard Condon’s Manchurian Candidate, Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal, Don DeLillo’s Libra and James Ellroy’s American Tabloid. Hanif’s exuberant first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, extends this tradition of assassination fiction and shifts it east to Pakistan . . . Like Catch-22, it is best understood as a satire of militarism, regulation and piety . . . Zia’s depiction is one of the book’s great achievements . . . There are shocking scenes in Hanif’s novel, and the shock they deliver is greater because they occur as interludes to the comedy . . . Hanif has written a historical novel with an eerie timeliness.”—Robert Macfarlane, New York Times Book Review

“In this brilliant debut, Hanif takes a disarming moment in world history and embellishes it into a darkly comic series of events . . . The author is exceptional in sharing his intimate take on Pakistan and the dynamics of the military. He also has a sharp sense of humor that finds a place in his extraordinary and cleverly fashioned characters . . . The detail is rich, the prose resonant. This is an intelligent book indeed . . . Grade: A.” —Quinn Fitzpatrick, Rocky Mountain News

“Hanif gallantly escorts readers right into the barracks in the darkly comic A Case of Exploding Mangoes . . . He ironically skewers military pretensions, religious hypocrisy, U.S. cluelessness and bureaucracy in general. Like Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Mangoes is global satire with a savage bite . . . Richly imagined.”—Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

“Fascinating . . . It sardonically examines the workings of the Pakistani state, which comes off like a Third World Brazil imagined by Raymond Chandler. What really drives Mangoes, however, is Hanif’s sharp writing and considerable wit . . . Profoundly humanist.”—Brian Francis Slattery, Village Voice

“It’s perhaps too soon for a satirical novel that capitalizes on the foibles of the Bush administration, but Hanif has given us the next best thing . . . There are many reasons to read this excellent novel, and one for which it should be celebrated: Hanif has found in Zia a veritable Homer Simpson of theocratic zealotry, lovably hilarious even as he denies clemency to a blind woman who’s about to be stoned to death–for the crime of having been gang-raped . . . The inevitable comparison here is to Dr. Strangelove, and just as the Kubrick film crystallized the absurdities of nuclear escalation into an archetypal cast of idiots-who-run-the-world, Mangoes provides the necessary update.”—Damian Da Costa, New York Observer

“Hanif confidently tackles ‘the biggest cover-up in aviation history since the last biggest cover-up,’ bringing absurdist humor and surprising warmth to his story.”—Katharine Critchlow, Entertainment Weekly

“Hanif’s book is sexy, subversive, and magical . . . Entertaining and original.”—June Thomas, Slate

“With perfect-pitch humor and insight, Hanif highlights the all-too-true buffoonery embedded in politics on the world stage.”—Alexis Burling, Washington Post (Media Mix)

“An ingenious fictionalized account of what could have happened on the road to General Zia’s death . . . There are enough questions to keep you fitting the puzzle pieces together until the very end . . . Witty.”—Elissa Elliott, Christianity Today


“Funny, subversive, erotic and sad. Anyone thinking of applying for the job of unhinged, religious dictator should read it first.”—Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

“Witty, elegant, and deliciously anarchic. Hanif has a lovely eye and an even better ear.”—John le Carré

“A sure-footed, inventive debut that deftly undercuts its moral rage with comedy and deepens its comedy with moral rage . . . The novel has less in common with the sober literature of fact than it does with Latin American magical realism (especially novels about mythic dictators such as Gabriel García Márquez’s Autumn of the Patriarch) and absurdist military comedy (like Joseph Heller’s Catch-22). Hanif adopts a playful, exuberant voice, as competing theories and assassination plots are ingeniously combined and overlaid.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Entertaining and illuminating . . . Hanif has crafted a clever black comedy about military culture, love, tyranny, family, and the events that eventually brought us to September 11, 2001. His depictions of Zia, Pakistani military life, the machinations of Pakistani military pols, and CIA cowboys are believable and convincingly detailed.”—Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

“A darkly comic debut . . . 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 . . . 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.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“One of the most important Pakistani novels of recent times, unputdownable and darkly hilarious. Mohammed Hanif is a brave, gifted writer. He has taken territory in desperate need of satire–General Zia, the military, Pakistan at the time of the Soviet-Afghan war–and made it undeniably his own. I, for one, am grateful.”—Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist