Rebel English Academy
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Unnervingly funny and subversive . . . this account of life under authoritarian siege is fiercely local and incontestably universal, harrowing and mutinously entertaining: a sure-fire Booker contender.”—The Guardian
From the brilliant Booker-longlisted Mohammed Hanif comes a lively, rich novel about the power of language, friendship, and protest in the face of political turmoil
When Pakistan’s first elected Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged, the people of OK Town refuse to believe he is dead and fight to bring him back.
In the heart of the city, Sir Baghi is surprised by a knock at the door of the Rebel English Academy, his tuition center offering affordable English lessons. An unexpected visitor, Sabiha, seeks refuge at the Academy—her husband has just died in a house fire, and she is suspected of killing him, although she insists she only ran away from a burning building. Baghi encourages Sabiha to write, and a lifetime of secrets begin to unspool on the page.
Meanwhile Captain Gul, a disgraced intelligence officer, has been banished to OK Town, where he aims to squash the protesters wanting to bring Bhutto back from the dead. But his duties and romantic desires begin to overlap, and his already dubious power is threatened.
In Rebel English Academy, Pakistan is struggling under martial law after the execution of its former leader. Mohammed Hanif has constructed a vibrant cast of interconnected characters who face this changing landscape with violence, passion, and sharp humor. Wry, searing, and deeply relevant, Rebel English Academy is a triumphant new novel about political power, religion, education, sexuality, and perpetual dissent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pakistan's 1977 military coup sets the stage for this farcical and nightmarish depiction of state-sponsored violence from Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes). Two years after Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is deposed, he's hanged by the new government, sparking intense protests and a wave of self-immolation. When army intelligence captain Gul bungles his assignment to procure a publishable photo of Bhutto's execution, he's banished to the provincial OK Town, where he embarks on a series of drunken sexual escapades. Hanif alternates Gul's story with that of Sabiha Bano, whose husband was found dead in a fire and initially thought to have burned himself in protest against Bhutto's execution. The police discover he was shot, though, and want to question Sabiha, prompting her to hide out at an English language school. Meanwhile, when a drunk Gul finds a videotape of a woman's rape, he falls in love with the woman and vows to save her. Noticing that she speaks English in the video, he searches for her at the school where Sabiha is hiding out, and the two story lines entwine. The conclusion is somewhat abrupt, but Hanif strikes a successful balance between the darkly humorous and the deadly serious, particularly in the depiction of Gul, who devolves from a drunken lout into something more sinister. It's an unsparing view into human depravity.
