Elaborate conspiracy theories abound in Mohammed Hanif's darkly satirical Rebel English Academy, a high-stakes historical drama of "dangerous love" and subversive politics set in Pakistan.
Hanif's cleverly plotted fourth novel opens in 1979 at the inauspicious moment Pakistan's former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed on the orders of the military. The country erupts in protests and celebrations, depending on political affiliations. When a distressing trend emerges of people lighting themselves on fire to protest Bhutto's hanging, Captain Gul of the military's Field Intelligence Unit is dispatched to OK Town to investigate. A mustached heartthrob with "unruly" sideburns, he is captivated by Sabiha, a young woman on the run after her husband's herbal medicine clinic burns down under questionable circumstances. Sabiha, a champion athlete and daughter of imprisoned Bhutto loyalists, takes refuge at an English-language academy run by Baghi, a teacher and former revolutionary. Baghi's school is situated within the local mosque, along with a lawyer's office and a palmist.
This is a wildly entertaining drama brimming with opportunists, including Molly, the overly pious head of the mosque, who's eager to make Sabiha his second wife, and the fearsome police officer A.D. Malang, who learned the "Queen's English" at the academy. Hanif's authority figures are only superficially interested in the travails of their constituents and only if it serves their own interests. The military execution of Bhutto, a devastating blow to democracy forever etched in Pakistan's psyche, is a provocative backdrop for Hanif (Red Birds; A Case of Exploding Mangoes) to explore power dynamics across society. Sabiha and Baghi are cogs in a system not designed for the ordinary person to succeed, while Captain Gul represents its overzealous core.
Captain Gul chases Shahid, a local shopkeeper intending to set himself on fire, and Sabiha hires the mosque's beeri-smoking lady lawyer to find her parents. For Baghi, prone to searching for lovers during afternoon matinees, harboring the fugitive athlete is just one reason to avoid his former student. Then there is the videotape of "such indignities, such filth" whose discovery raises troubling questions.
In OK Town, falling in love is not for the fainthearted. Sabiha foils her suitors, yet her own heart is destined to be broken. Even as the authorities close in on their prey, Hanif--ever the satirist--recruits small-town heroes to administer their own absurdist version of justice in a finale superbly fitting for such an unsettling period in Pakistan's history. --Shahina Piyarali
Shelf Talker: Dangerous love and subversive politics collide in this cleverly plotted, darkly satirical, and wildly entertaining historical drama set in late 1970s Pakistan.