<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>A <i>Washington Post</i>, <i>Rocky Mountain News</i>, <i>Boston Globe</i> Best Book of the Year</b> <p/>Intrigue and subterfuge combine with bad luck and good in this darkly comic debut about love, betrayal, tyranny, family, and a conspiracy trying its damnedest to happen. <p/>Ali Shigri, Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of the Fury Squadron, is on a mission to avenge his father's suspicious death, which the government calls a suicide.Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistani. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators, including his cologne-bathed roommate, a hash-smoking American lieutenant, and a mango-besotted crow, Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"An insanely brilliant, satirical first novel . . . Belongs in a tradition that includes <i>Catch-22, </i> but it also calls to mind the biting comedy of Philip Roth."--<i>The Washington Post</i>"A brilliant debut. . . . Exceptional. . . . The detail is rich, the prose resonant. Grade A."--<i>Rocky Mountain News</i>"Like Catch-22, it is best understood as a satire of militarism, regulation and piety.... Hanif has written a historical novel with an eerie timeliness."--<i>The New York Times Book Review</i>"Global satire with a savage bite. . . . Richly imagined."--<i>The Miami Herald</i>"Hanif's book is sexy, subversive, and magical.... Entertaining and original." --<i>Slate</i>"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."--<i>The Village Voice</i>"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 . . . The inevitable comparison here is to <i>Dr. Strangelove, </i>and just as the Kubrick film crystallized the absurdities of nuclear escalation into an archetypal cast of idiots-who-run-the-world, <i>Mangoes </i>provides the necessary update."--<i>New York Observer</i>"Witty, elegant, and deliciously anarchic. Hanif has a lovely eye and an even better ear."--John le Carré"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."--<i>Entertainment Weekly</i>"Funny, subversive, erotic, and sad. Anyone thinking of applying for the job of unhinged, religious dictator should read it first." --Mark Haddon, author of <i>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time</i>"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."--Mohsin Hamid, author of <i>The Reluctant Fundamentalist</i><b> </b>"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 <i>Autumn of the Patriarch</i>) and absurdist military comedy (like Joseph Heller's <i>Catch-22</i>). Hanif adopts a playful, exuberant voice, as competing theories and assassination plots are ingeniously combined and overlaid."--<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>"Pakistan's ongoing political turmoil adds a piquant edge to this fact-based farce . . . Hanif's depiction of military foibles recalls the satirical wallop of <i>Catch-22.</i> [He brings] heft to this sagely absurd depiction of his homeland's history of political conspiracies and corruption."--<i>Publishers Weekly</i> "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."--<i>Booklist</i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Mohammed Hanif runs the Urdu service of the BBC's World Service. He was in the Pakistani Air Force for seven years, and then a journalist in Pakistan, where he is also known as a playwright. He won the Board of Examiners top prize at the University of East Anglia this year for an excerpt from <b>A Case of Exploding Mangoes</b>, which is his first novel.
Cheapest price in the interval: 16.99 on November 8, 2021
Most expensive price in the interval: 16.99 on December 20, 2021
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