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 humor.
Entertaining ... The events of Rebel English Academy are often grim — rape, murder and torture, with a pair of pliers going to work on a toenail — but the tone throughout is light and even buoyant. That’s the book’s charm, and also its limitation ... But a familiar pleasure is still a pleasure, and the book is alive throughout with a sense of death’s-head mischief. It won’t keep you thinking, but that bit about the pliers will make you both wince and grin.
Mr. Hanif has struggled to rebottle the lightning of his brilliant 2008 satire, A Case of Exploding Mangoes ... Rebel English Academy reprises the excoriating humor of that debut, but only erratically.
Hanif’s prickly new novel confirms his standing as one of south Asia’s most unnervingly funny and subversive voices ... Smart, taut and electrifying, the tale fuses slapstick and the fun of a cat-and-mouse thriller with the serious reckoning work of a state-of-the-nation novel.
