A Case of Exploding Mangoes Book Review Dawn News
 Offset edition (Usa) | |
| Author | Mohammed Hanif |
|---|---|
| Land | Islamic republic of pakistan |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Published | 2008 (Knopf/US) |
| Publication appointment | 20 May 2008 |
| Media type | Impress (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 336 pp |
| ISBN | 0-307-26807-1 |
| OCLC | 191865420 |
A Example of Exploding Mangoes (2008)[ane] is a comic novel by the Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif based on the 1988 plane crash that killed General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, former president of Pakistan.[2] The book received generally positive reviews from critics. It won the Commonwealth Foundation's Best Starting time Book prize in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Guardian Start Book Award.
Plot summary [edit]
The fundamental theme of the volume is a fictitious story backside the real-life airplane crash which killed General Zia, president of Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, about which there are many conspiracy theories. After witnessing a tank parade in Bahawalpur, Pakistan on Baronial 17, 1988, Zia leaves the small-scale Punjabi town in the C-130 Hercules aircraft designated "Pak One," forth with several of his senior ground forces officials, the US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel, and some crates of mangoes. Before long subsequently a polish takeoff, the control tower loses contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air later claim it was flying erratically, earlier nosediving and exploding on bear upon, killing all 31 on board. Zia had ruled Pakistan for 11 years prior to his death.
Lazy, irreverent Ali Shigri narrates the story. Ali's father, Col. Quli Shigri, has recently died in what was called a suicide, but Ali discovers that his begetter was killed by a rogue ISI officer, Major Kiyani, under Zia's orders. The story takes identify in the months earlier the aeroplane crash, jumping back and forth between Ali'southward revenge plans and his third-person observations of Zia's life. Ali attends the Pakistani Air Force University with his fellow cadets and their instructors. His best friend is Cadet "Infant O" Obaid, his roommate and lover.
Interspersed between pieces of Ali'southward narrative are glimpses into the lives of other key Pakistani and American political players: Chief of Pakistani Intelligence General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, American ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel, and President Zia ul-Haq himself. The book likewise touches on the perspectives of some of Zia's closest confidants.
Over the course of the book, Zia grows e'er more suspicious of those in his inner circle until he is driven utterly mad past his own paranoia. Every morning, he asks his principal of security, "Who's trying to kill me?" A devout Muslim, he attends daily prayers, where he weeps loudly (an occurrence to which the other worshippers have become accepted). He fights with his wife and takes every opportunity to leer at non-Muslim cleavage.
In one subplot, General Zia sentences Zainab, a blind woman, to death past stoning for beingness the victim of a gang rape. Beingness blind, she could not identify her attackers, and so according to Zia'south sharia court, she has committed adultery. For condemning her, Zainab calls down a expletive upon Zia. The curse is picked upwardly past a sugar-obsessed crow. In another subplot, Arnold Raphel holds a Fourth of July political party in Islamabad. A young, bearded Saudi known equally "OBL" attends. OBL works for Laden and Co. Constructions, making this a clear reference to, and a cameo past, Osama bin Laden.
Ali'southward revenge plot consists of stabbing Zia in the heart with his under-officer sword, a motion he practices daily in underground. But Baby O concocts a new plot to kill Zia past crashing a plane kamikaze-style down on him. He even goes so far every bit to steal a plane for the job, but in doing so, he accidentally lands Ali in prison at Lahore Fort, a torture center. While in that location, Ali listens to the screams of his tortured beau prisoners and talks via a hole in the wall with the "Secretarial assistant Full general" who has been in solitary confinement there for nine years. Ali eventually learns that his ain father is the ane responsible for turning Lahore Fort into a torture centre ("Nice piece of work, Dad," he responds). Meanwhile, Major Kiyani appears on the scene, intending to torture Ali.
A sudden change in ISI control takes identify, and Ali is freed in fourth dimension to avoid torture. Upon his arrival dorsum at the Pakistani Air Strength University, he learns that he has been chosen equally part of the team that will perform a silent drill salute for Zia. Ali volition finally have his opportunity, and he decides to stake his revenge plot on the utilize of snake venom from Uncle Starchy (launderer for PAF Academy), injected into Zia's manus via Ali's sword. After the silent drill salute, Zia boards the doomed Pak One.
The novel does not confirm whether or non Ali is successful in his effort to assassinate Full general Zia. Rather, several alternatives are offered: the curse-conveying crow that crashed into the airplane'due south engines while pursuing the mangoes, an explosive planted in the mangoes by the All Pakistan Sweepers Union in revenge for the death of their general-secretary at the easily of Major Kiyani, or i of Zia's confidants, each with their own secrets and motivations. The volume even speculates that it could be the work of the CIA.
Themes [edit]
Corruption [edit]
General Akhtar Abdul Rehman is the master of ISI under General Zia. He controlled the tremendously great ISI and falls resentfully to 2d in importance, control, and control to Full general Zia ul-Haq. The ISI with its government amanuensis systems and the mensurate of financing makes General Akhtar an exceptionally well-off and dangerous man. As ISI is in charge of pipe the assets and weapons to the Afghan mujahideen, the book indicates that every 1 of these assets are not given to the mujahideen. The millions are occupied somewhere else, to people with great influence, General Akhtar main amongst them.
Global politics [edit]
The book explores the seemingly cocky-contradictory nature of American policy in the Middle East during this time. Much time is spent discussing the joint U.s.a.-Pakistan endeavor to support Afghan mujahideen guerilla fighters against Soviet forces in the 1980s. Hanif writes, "Would-be supporters of the jihad against the Soviets were sent cards carrying a picture of a expressionless Afghan child (caption: Better dead than red)."[1] Readers are reminded that the United states of america enthusiastically collaborated with Full general Zia to finance, railroad train, and supply the Afghan mujahideen in their insurgency. It was Zia who permitted the shipment of American arms and billions of American dollars to the rebels, and who allowed the border regions of Islamic republic of pakistan to be used as their haven and training base of operations. Hanif highlights the irony in America wanting to purge the world of one type of absolutism past cultivating another. By propping up an unhinged dictator like Zia and conspiring with violent radicals, Hanif believes that the U.Due south. demonstrates that it will manipulate any weaker role player information technology tin into being a pawn in their foreign policy strategy.
Islamism [edit]
Throughout the book, Zia remains convinced he is guided by Allah and feels he is receiving ominous messages straight out of the Quran predicting his demise. During his presidency Zia was credited for the Islamization of Pakistan. He was committed to enforcing his interpretation of Nizam-e-Mustafa ("Rule of the prophet" Muhammad), i.e. to constitute an Islamic state and enforce sharia law.[iii] Hanif depicts this in a negative light to expose the hypocrisies he believes are nowadays in political Islam.
Characters [edit]
Fictitious characters [edit]
- Under Officer Ali Shigri – protagonist, leader of "Silent Drill Squad" at Pakistan Air Force Academy, Risalpur
- Major Kiyani – ISI officer who pushes Shigri to sign off that his father was a suicide (may be based on 2007-2013 Pakistan Army Principal Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, but not identical—equally revealed at the novel'southward end) and transports Shigri between prisons
- "Secretary Full general" – prisoner in the prison cell next to Ali Shigri, who claims to have been the Secretary General of the All Pakistan Sweepers Marriage back in the beginning of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's era. His real proper name is never revealed.
- Nether Officer Obaid "Baby O" – Shigri'southward roommate and lover at Pakistan Air Forcefulness University, who develops the idea of crashing his aeroplane into an area where Zia is present (in manner of Mathias Rust'due south flying into Moscow)
- Brigadier TM-Tahir Mirza – bears a slight resemblance to Tariq Mehmood. Dies in a televised parachuting blow.
- Lt. "Loot" Bannon – hash-smoking USAF teacher who develops "Silent Drill"
- "Uncle Starchy" – launderer for PAF Academy, who keeps jars of krait venom which he terms "decease nectar"
- Zainab – blind rape-victim whom Zia sentences to decease (through stoning) for adultery, and who curses Zia
Real people appearing as characters [edit]
- Full general Muhammad Zia ul-Haq
- Zia'southward wife, Begum Shafiq Zia
- General Akhtar Abdur Rahman
- General Mirza Aslam Beg
- U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel
- Raphel's wife, diplomat Nancy Halliday Ely-Raphel
- CIA Near East & South Asia Partitioning Main Charles Cogan
- Osama bin Laden
- Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu
- U.S. political activist Joanne Herring
Reception [edit]
The Guardian described the novel as "woven in language every bit explosive equally the mangoes themselves, is wickedly cynical and reveals layers of outrageous – and plausible – corruption."[four] The New York Times, in a review, called the novel "eerie timeliness".[5] The Washington Post ended its review by attesting that "Hanif has his own story to tell, one that defies expectations at every turn."[half dozen]
Awards and nominations [edit]
- Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Book Prize in the Best Outset Volume category.[7]
- Winner of the 2008 Shakti Bhatt First Volume Prize.[8]
- Shortlisted for the 2008 Guardian Showtime Book Award.[nine]
- Longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize.[10]
References [edit]
- ^ a b Mohammed Hanif (May 2008). A Case of Exploding Mangoes . Knopf. ISBN978-0-307-26807-5.
- ^ Gopal, Priyamvada (2008-05-30). "The tardily dictator". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-02-xi .
- ^ Kepel, Gilles (2006). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I.B.Tauris. ISBN9781845112578.
- ^ Redford, Rachel (2009-01-24). "Audio Review: A Case of Exploding Mangoes". The Guardian . Retrieved 2020-05-29 .
- ^ Macfarlane, Robert (2008-06-xv). "Book Review | 'A Case of Exploding Mangoes,' by Mohammed Hanif". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-02-11 .
- ^ Slavin, Julia (2008-06-xviii). "Bursts of Laughter". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-02-xi .
- ^ 2009 Winners, [1] Archived 2012-01-04 at the Wayback Motorcar, The Commonwealth Foundation Website. Retrieved 2012-02-06.
- ^ 'The Shakti Bhatt First Volume Prize 2008 - The Winner', [2], Remembering Shakti Bhatt webpage [3], 27 January 2009. Retrieved 2012-02-06.
- ^ Higgins, Charlotte (31 Oct 2008). "Five of the best in line for the Guardian beginning book award". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 Apr 2010.
- ^ Prize Annal 2008, [four] Archived 2011-11-21 at the Wayback Machine, The Homo Booker Prize website. Retrieved 2012-02-06.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Exploding_Mangoes
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