↳ LAUGH & RESIST
A Case of Exploding Mangoes
by Mohammed Hanif
Everyone wants to kill General Zia. Someone succeeds.
For you if
you want to understand Pakistan's military politics through a comedy that takes the absurdity completely seriously
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.
Supports independent bookstores
— or —
Secondhand & sustainable
$22 MSRP
· Paperback
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
Pakistan, 1988. General Zia ul-Haq's plane explodes shortly after takeoff, killing everyone aboard including the US Ambassador. Hanif writes a dark comedy of competing assassination plots — the CIA, Inter-Services Intelligence, a junior air force officer, a crow, possibly the mangoes — that converges on that explosion. He treats Pakistan's most beloved military dictator with a savage irreverence that would have been dangerous to publish in Pakistan, and uses the farce to dispatch from inside Pakistan's relationship with its own military history: the coups, the executions, the American money, the permanent state within the state. The funniest political novel on this shelf.
WHERE THIS BOOK LIVES
- Setting
- Pakistan • South Asia
- Voice
- Written by a Pakistani author
- Themes
- Laughing at Empire
