Red Birds

This "splendidly satirical novel" by the award-winning Pakistani author "beautifully captures the absurdity and folly of war and its ineluctable impact" (Booklist, starred review). An American pilot crash lands in the desert and finds himself on the outskirts of the very camp he was supposed to bomb. After days spent wandering and hallucinating from dehydration, Major Ellie is rescued by one of the camp's residents, a teenager named Momo, whose money-making schemes are failing while his family falls apart. His older brother left for his first day of work at an American base and never returned; his parents are at each other's throats; his dog is having a very bad day; and a well-meaning aid worker has shown up wanting to research him for her book on the Teenage Muslim Mind. To escape the madness, Momo sets out to search for his brother, and hopes his new Western acquaintances might be able to help find him. But as the truth of Ali's whereabouts begin to unfold, the effects of American "aid" on this war-torn country are revealed to be increasingly pernicious. In Red Birds, acclaimed author Mohammed Hanif reveals critical truths about the state of the world with his trademark wit and keen eye for absurdity.

About the Author :
Mohammed Hanif was born in Pakistan. After leaving the Pakistan Air Force Academy to pursue a career in journalism, he worked for Newsline, India Today, and The Washington Post. He has written plays for the stage and screen, including a critically acclaimed BBC drama and the feature film The Long Night. Hanif is a graduate of University of East Anglia's creative writing programme. He is currently head of BBC's Urdu Service and lives in London.David Bendena is an actor and a musician based in the Midwest. His theatre experience over the past twenty years has taken him to stages throughout Chicago, Kansas City, and Michigan. He is very proud to be a member of the Actors Equity Association and to be a Resident Artist with the Purple Rose Theatre Company.

Review :
Praise for Red Birds Praise for Red Birds "An incisive, unsparing critique of war and of America's role in the destruction of the Middle East...Hanif is dexterous and ambitious with the literary tools of both east and west...Combine this with humour as cutting as Heller or Evelyn Waugh...and you have something wildly original." -Dina Nayeri, The Guardian "Red Birds is a fresh marvel, describing with cool wit and steely yet tender intelligence the interlinked fates of antagonists in a forgotten war-scape - and the complicity of our own sheltered lives in remote conflicts." -Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian "An impressive multi-voiced performance that straddles bitter tragedy and pungent black comedy, grounded realism and flighty absurdity ... Red Birds thrums with rambunctious energy... this is writing with guts, satire with bite" -Malcolm Forbes, The National "An acutely observed refugee tale ... Both achingly realistic and elusively metaphysical ... dripping with exuberant disdain for the way in which western power has corrupted the world ... an effective satire that reminds us that everybody - refugees, distraught mothers, unthinking airmen, well-meaning aid workers, dogs and ghosts - has a need to love, and be loved" -Ben East, The Observer "A blistering, savage, tragicomic satire about the cruelty of war and the impossibility of peace ... Hanif writes of violence and bitterness with flashes of hilarity that underline his anger and his humanity." -Kate Saunders, The Times "Hanif has a talent for taking the most serious subjects...and, in a style indebted to Joseph Heller's Catch-22, emphasising their fundamental absurdity through satire. Hanif's authorial gifts are undeniable and Red Birds is written with ambition and powerful satirical anger." -Literary Review "Deploying a relentlessly grim gallows humour, Hanif skewers the entrenched insanity of conflict ... Hanif's bleak, formidable use of irony burns deeply." -Daily Mail Praise for Mohammed Hanif: "Mohammed Hanif is a brave, gifted writer." --Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West "Witty, elegant, and deliciously anarchic. Hanif has a lovely eye and an even better ear." --John le Carré, on Case of the Exploding Mangoes "An insanely brilliant, satirical first novel . . . Belongs in a tradition that includes Catch-22, but it also calls to mind the biting comedy of Philip Roth." --The Washington Post, on Case of the Exploding Mangoes "A comedy for those who think, a tragedy for those who feel... Hanif does Karachi better than Rushdie does Bombay... Relentlessly readable, compulsively so as it surges towards it apocalyp-tic conclusion" --The Guardian, on Our Lady of Alice Bhatti