A Case of Exploding Mangoes
  • Published: 1 May 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099516743
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $24.99

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

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EBook
1 Dec 2010
Paperback
1 May 2009
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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.

**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.
  • Published: 1 May 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099516743
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

Mohammed Hanif

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.

portrait photo of Mohammed Hanif

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Praise for A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Witty, elegaic and deliciously anarchic

John Le Carré

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

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

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

Colin Waters, Sunday Herald

Dry, droll and insightful

The Independent

Provocative and comic debut.

The Times

An exciting, accomplished new literary voice

Irish Times

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

Sunday Times

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

Hermione Eyre, The Observer

A very funny satire-cum-thriller

Sally Cousins, Sunday Telegraph Seven

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

Observer

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

Daily Telegraph

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

Daily Mail

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

Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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

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
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