Quick Facts
Biography
Mohammed Hanif (born November 1964 in Okara, Pakistan) is a British-Pakistani writer and journalist who is the author of the critically acclaimed A Case of Exploding Mangoes, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and won the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book. His second book, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, won the Wellcome Book Prize. He also works as a correspondent for the BBC News based in Karachi and was the writer for its critically acclaimed drama and the feature film, The Long Night.
He work has been published by The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The New Yorker and The Washington Post. His play The Dictator's Wife has been staged at the Hampstead Theatre.
Life
He was born in Okara. He graduated from Pakistan Air Force Academy as a pilot officer, but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism. He initially worked for Newsline and wrote for The Washington Post and India Today. He is a graduate of the University of East Anglia.
In 1996, he moved to London to work for the BBC. Later, he became the head of the BBC's Urdu service in London. He moved back to Pakistan in 2008.
Works
His first novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) was shortlisted for the 2008 Guardian First Book Award and longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. It won the 2009 Commonwealth Book Prize in the Best First Book category and the 2008 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize.
Hanif has also written for the stage and screen, including a feature film, The Long Night (2002), a BBC radio play, What Now, Now That We Are Dead?, and the stage play The Dictator's Wife (2008). His second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, was published in 2011. It was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize (2012), and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature (2013).
He is currently collaborating with composer Mohammed Fairouz on an opera titled Bhutto.
Hanif's style has often been compared with that of author Salman Rushdie. But Hanif disagrees. Even though he says that he enjoys reading Rushdie's books, he would not want to suffer the same fate as Rushdie did.