Book: A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Author: Mohammad Hanif
Year published: 2008
Genre: Dark historical satire
Rating: 9/10
Review: A Case of Exploding Mangoes is a darkly comic historical novel set in Pakistan in the time Zia ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1978 to 1988. It's the debut novel of Mohammad Hanif, and, while it isn't perfect, it's very good. This is a writer I will be watching for. As in the book, ul-Haq actually
The protagonist of A Case of Exploding Mangoes is Ali Shigri, a junior officer in the Pakistan Air Force. His father (a colonel) died under suspicious circumstances (the armed forces say it was suicide) and part of the novel involves exploration of that. But at the start of the novel, we learn that ul-Haq has been assassinated, and the novel also tracks several threads leading to that event; it turns out that many people want to kill off ul-Haq, some of them are actually trying, and others are only suspect; and, of course, some of the people who are suspected are innocent.
The protagonist of A Case of Exploding Mangoes is Ali Shigri, a junior officer in the Pakistan Air Force. His father (a colonel) died under suspicious circumstances (the armed forces say it was suicide) and part of the novel involves exploration of that. But at the start of the novel, we learn that ul-Haq has been assassinated, and the novel also tracks several threads leading to that event; it turns out that many people want to kill off ul-Haq, some of them are actually trying, and others are only suspect; and, of course, some of the people who are suspected are innocent.
The comedy here is very dark - in the realm of MASH or even Catch 22 - the armed services are ridiculed for their pomposity. Ul-Haq is depicted as a buffoon who tries to use the Quran as a fortune telling tool, whose wife mercilessly mocks him, and whose subordinates are flabbergasted by his backwardness. Pakistan is depicted as a very strange place - a place where women (including one blind woman) are arrested for being raped, and where the rulers are surprised that the Western world is appalled at this. Osama bin Laden shows up as the guest (and hero) of the Americans at a 4th of July party, and the Americans also come in for plenty of mockery. Shigri also gets arrested in a case of mistaken identity, and then made into a hero, in another case of mistaken identity.
In one scene, ul-Haq's wife shows up on a line of beggars, and ul-Haq almost doesn't recognize her. In another set of scenes, Shigri leads a "silent drill team" that is also instructed by an American. Senior American leaders also get ribbed (especially Bill Casey of the CIA)
Hanif actually served in the Pakistan Air Force, so his descriptions have a realism that is hard to match, like his protagonist, he was once locked up in a cell by the Air Force; he grew up in a family where the only book was the Quran, now he lives in London and writes.
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