Mohammed Hanif On Secrets And Lies In Pakistan

At NPR:

The Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif is living proof that you can sometimes tell the truth more easily with fiction than facts. Hanif is a journalist in one of the world's more dangerous places to be a journalist: Pakistan. He's also become one of the country's most prominent and provocative novelists. His book A Case of Exploding Mangoes told the tale of real-life Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq, who died in a plane crash in 1988. Few believed it was an accident, and Hanif's novel delved into the conspiracies (and conspiracy theories).

Hanif joins NPR's Steve Inskeep to discuss the reception of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and his new novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, the story of a poor hospital nurse in the city of Karachi.

On choosing to fictionalize Zia-ul-Haq's death

“Like all young reporters, I was like, this is going to be my big story, and I started working on it. After a few months, I realized that there was no way I was going to get to the bottom of it. There were layers and layers and layers of deception and cover-ups to cover the other cover-ups. Then it occurred to me that I would just make up my own facts. If no one was willing to tell me who did it, then as a fictional character, I'll raise my hand and say, 'Well, I did it,' and I'll write a book about it. And so, basically, it was a failed journalist's revenge.”

On people accepting his version of events

“The funny thing is, after the book came out, a lot of people — and some of them were heads of intelligence agencies — I've run into them at a party or at a social gathering, and they take me into a corner and say, 'Son, you've written a brilliant novel. Now tell me, who's your source?' I used to find it a bit scary at the beginning that, my God, these people are running my country and they actually believe all the lies that I've written.”

More here.