Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is a book about the assassination of General Zia. Nobody really knows who killed him, but the suggestion is that a case of mangoes was loaded on to his airplane and inside the case of mangoes was nerve gas which knocked out the pilot and caused the plane to crash. In a way it’s a comic book because it pokes fun at the General. People like General Zia shouldn’t be taken seriously. They are comical figures who converted Pakistan into some sort of banana republic. And poking fun at them is a good way of deflating them.
Next, A Case of Exploding Mangoes. The title suggests it will be a light summer’s read and very much a comedy. Is that the case?
No. This is a book about the assassination of General Zia. Nobody really knows who killed him, but the suggestion is that a case of mangoes was loaded on to his airplane and inside the case of mangoes was nerve gas which knocked out the pilot and caused the plane to crash. In a way it’s a comic book because it pokes fun at the General. I think it’s a useful book because of that. People like General Zia shouldn’t be taken seriously. They are comical figures who converted the country into some sort of banana republic. And poking fun at them is a good way of deflating them.
Another part of the book is the role the Americans were playing in Pakistan. In the Afghan war the Americans were talking up people like General Zia and giving them anything they wanted in return for their connivance in helping with the war in Afghanistan. The Americans certainly weren’t complaining about the General’s undemocratic ways because they needed people like him.
Read full interviewDaniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan and Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope and The Best American Short Stories 2008 selected by Salman Rushdie. For a number of years he practised law in New York. He is based on his family’s farm in Pakistan’s southern Punjab – which inspired his collection of short stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders – but is living in London for the next ten months while his wife pursues her graduate studies. Daniyal Mueenuddin talks to FiveBooks about the changing face of Pakistan.
