A Case Of Exploding Mangoes

In August 1988, Zia gets into the presidential plane, Pak One, which explodes midway. Who killed him? The army generals growing old waiting for their promotions, the CIA, the ISI, RAW, or Ali Shigri, a junior officer at the military academy whose father, a whisky-swilling jihadi colonel, was murdered by the army? A Case of Exploding Mangoes is sharp, black, inventive, and utterly gripping. It marks the debut of a brilliant new writer.

From the prize-winning author hailed as "Pakistan's brightest voice" (Guardian), comes a powerful and darkly satirical novel about the the harsh, absurd hypocrisies of American intervention in the Muslim world

From the author of the universally acclaimed debut novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes: a subversive, often shockingly funny new novel set in steaming Karachi, about second chances, thwarted ambitions, and love in the most unlikely places. The patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments need a miracle, and Alice Bhatti may be just what they're looking for. She's the new junior nurse, but that's the only thing ordinary about her. Her father is a part-time healer in the French Colony, Karachi's Christian slum--and it seems she has inherited his part-time gift. With a bit of begrudging but inspired improvisation, Alice brings succour to the patients lining the hospital's corridors. Yet, a Christian in an Islamic world, she is ensnared in the red tape of hospital bureaucracy, trapped by the caste system, and torn between her duty to her patients, her father, and her husband--an apprentice to the nefarious "Gentlemen's Squad" of the police, and about to plunge them both into a situation so dangerous that perhaps not even a miracle can save them. But, of course, Alice Bhatti is no ordinary nurse...

Document from the year 2017 in the subject English - Literature, Works, Comenius University in Bratislava, language: English, abstract: This essay is about Rawi Hage's novel "Cockroach", which at first sight is, according to the Daily Telegraph, 'A tale of murder, intrigue and sex from the exuberantly talented Hage'. However, Cockroach embodies more than this (negative) one-sighted approach. It is also a novel of migration, exile, diaspora and being unwanted because of being a foreigner of migrant background and Hage - like Rushdie - explores the hinterland between fantasy, trauma and realism. The unnamed narrator of the novel takes the reader by the hand and exposes this immigrant life in a chilly surrounding. Chilly because people are cold and chilly because the climate is cold, too. The fact that Hage as a Lebanese born person uses a Canadian setting as the place of action already hints at two conditions of contemporary Muslim writing in general. This refers to the autobiographical basis which many novels have and the use of the city as the background of the narration, two presuppositions of Muslim writing since Rushdie and Kureishi. Hage, in Cockroach, explores Montreal and presents it as an alien and hostile topography of menial jobs, hidden or open xenophobia, a mix of foreigners, insect behaviours and class hostilities. This narrator, an exotic foreigner himself, despises the world around him and takes the reader through a nightmare of Canadian reality on the basis of his violent childhood, the death of his sister, his exile situation and the helplessness of Canada which fails in the person of a court-mandated psychiatrist. His traumatic past and his inability as a man to protect the female members of his family are also symbols for a failed integration and the personal crisis of the narrator who seeks to find identity and a life at the border of physical and psychological death.

Scientific Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Literature - Asia, Comenius University in Bratislava, language: English, abstract: This book is an introduction into (female) 'Pakistani Fiction'. It starts with some sort of background information on the catchphrase 'Pakistani Fiction' in order to place the female aspect into its literary background. A second step lies in a description of the position of this literary concept within 'Postcolonial Writing' which is marked and shaped by so many different cultural and religious elements. The short analysis of two selected novels, Ice Candy Man (1991) by Bapsi Sidhwa and Brick Lane (2003) by Monica Ali should help to show how female Pakistani writers deal with female matters. This literary reflection will be supported by three parameters which can be found in many novels dealing with this subject. The talk is about gender, diaspora and globalization all of which are used to portray female characters. The end will consist of some sort of outlook where 'Pakistani Fiction' stands at the moment and where its trends might go to.

Scientific Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, Comenius University in Bratislava (Englische Literatur), language: English, abstract: The intention of this essay is to give one important literary reflection of how female Muslim existence is presented in the contemporary English speaking novel. The choice to concentrate on a female Muslim author results from the fact that (female) Muslim writing at the moment represents one of the strongest and most influential movements of writers coming from an Islamic background. It is novelists like Bapsi Sidhwa, Qaisra Sharaz, Umera Ahmad, Kamila Shamsie, Sara Suleri or Monica Ali who have shown in their writings that most publications of female writers seem to present their characters in a more convincing and more multiple way than their male counterparts. The structure of this essay is as follows. The beginning will consist of some sort of background information which will cover fields all of which will help to understand the background these writers (and their characters) come from. This literary analysis therefore starts with a (critical) reflection of Muslim writing. This will then be followed by an excursion on the concept of hybridity under an Islamic focus because female hyprid existence in the West is the central parameter chosen here. This essay will be followed by a closer analysis of Fadia Faquir's novel My name is Salma (2007) in order to give an example of female Muslim existence in the West and in the East. It is exactly this span of two opposing worlds which finally brings about the main character's failure and death. The end of this essay then will result in some sort of outlook where female Muslim writing might head to.

Scientific Essay from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: Monica Ali's novel "Brick Lane" published in 2003 marked her literary breakthrough as a female Muslim writer of the second generation. She, like many of her male predecessors such as Hanif Kureishi or Salman Rushdie, chose London as the literary region to reflect matters like migration, immigration, assimilation, cultural and religious backgrounds which she linked to classical matters of female writing such as emancipation. One of the results from this was not only an insight into the Bengali community of the Tower Hamlets or the role of Muslim women in general but a double vision of (Muslim and Western) life in Great Britain. The choice to focus on the Greater London Area also helped to concentrate on the new approach by Muslim writers of the second generation to work with the former notion of the 'postcolonial city' in a new way while presenting London as a multicultural place. This decision at present is accompanied by the second choice of these writers to also include former British colonies in order to better reflect the double background of their main characters. Kia Abdullah - like Ali - also stems from the large Bengali community of the Tower Hamlets in London and it was no surprise that the presentation of her main female character Kieran Ali also provoked criticism and protest from her own community. Her novel "Life, Love and Assimilation" (2006) must, however, be seen as the more provocative novel since her main character chooses and lives emancipation in a more radical way. This option is simply possible because Kieran – unlike Nazneen, the main character of "Brick Lane" – belongs to the generation of Muslim girls and teenagers who were born and raised in Great Britain. Both books can therefore be linked in the sense that they seem to start a discussion of female Muslim emancipation of immigrants (Nazneen) and girls being born and raised in the British Muslim community which still produces cultural and religious pressure on women. To write about this and to show the role of women under Islam is, of course, provocative but this provocation is honest and necessary to discuss the present status of Muslim women in general. The fact that both novels are based on an autobiographical background makes them even more convincing. It does, however, also show that both sides East and West still have a long way to go to tear down traditional religious concepts which still consider the female to being inferior to the male.

Scientific Essay from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, Comenius University in Bratislava, language: English, abstract: ‘South Asian literature’ is a literary term closely connected to countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives or Bangladesh. Afghanistan here holds an outside position because of the fact that Afghan writers at home face an extremely difficult situation. So it is mostly the exile position from which they write about their country. Afghanistan nevertheless is often picked by migrant writers as a setting of their novels because it is ideal to reflect the 9/11 development for both character development or plot. It is therefore logical that this country is not only a neglected part of South Asian literature it is also hardly mentioned by critics. It is simply speaking difficult to label Afghan writing as 'colonial' or 'neo-colonial writing'. Many Muslim writers sometimes make use of female characters as being central parts for the narrative it is interesting to note that the female presentation plays a marginal role in history making or in the sense of ordering and interpreting past and present thus theorizing matters in general. However, growing female issues in many novels such as oppression, prostitution, rape, domestic violence or birth control slowly seem to change the traditional female role as being inferior to man. This present trend is not only seen by feminist anthropologists, Western radical feminists or gender studies but also more and more by writers from both sexes. Thus, matters like patriarchy, culture, class, religion or nation are newly discussed making ‘South Asian Literature’ an extremely energetic field of contemporary migrant writing. They fulfill that what other critics see in three areas while reading postcolonial contexts. The first area they reflect is "reading texts produced by writers from countries with a history of colonies". The second element they discuss lies in the fact they write texts "produced by those that have migrated from countries with a history of colonialism, or those descended from migrant families". And the last area they cover lies in the fact that they are "re-reading texts produced during colonialism ... addressing the imperial experience or not". So one can conclude from this that ‘South Asian literature’ has become not only one important element of ‘Postcolonial writing’ it also includes many political aspects which are of importance for this essay.