Red Birds

By Mohammed Hanif

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A thrilling, razor-sharp critique of US foreign policy … Red Birds is an incisive, unsparing critique of war and of America's role in the destruction of the Middle East. It combines modern and ancient farcical traditions in thrilling way' Guardian
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American pilot Major Ellie has crashed his plane in the middle of a desert. Lucky for him there's room for him at the very refugee camp he was supposed to bomb.

Teenage Momo doesn't see it that way: the camp is a trap, not a refuge. His brother's missing, his parents are in a rage, and an aid worker won't stop trying to interview him for her book on the Teenage Muslim Mind.

Savage, irreverent and deliciously dark, Red Birds is a masterful unravelling of intertwined fates in a forgotten war-scape – and a brilliant satire about satire about the absurdity of war and the impossibility of peace.

'Funny, dark, compassionate and angry' Daily Telegraph
'The funniest tragedy I've read in years' Hanif Kureishi
'A blistering, savage, tragicomic satire about the cruelty of war and the impossibility of peace' The Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781408897218

Mohammed Hanif

Mohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan. He graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism. His first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel. His second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, was shortlisted for the 2012 Wellcome Prize. He has written the libretto for a new opera Bhutto. He writes regularly for the New York Times, BBC Urdu, and BBC Punjabi. He currently splits his time between Berlin and Karachi.

Reviews for Red Birds

[charl08-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"You must have heard that god created couples so that his creation could multiply and overpopulate the world. But god also created couples so that they could hound each other in life, betray each other and then haunt each other after one of them dies"I am not sure that I would have kept reading this if it wasn't for being an ARC. Lots of smart comments about aid, international relations and foreign colonial wars, but the story didn't grab me. One downed pilot, one dog and one fifteen year old refugee who has lost his brother. Although initially it read to me as if it was something that felt all too real, it was as though the author lost faith in telling that story and instead diverted into magical realism territory."When someone dies in a raid or a shooting or when someone’s throat is slit, their last drop of blood transforms into a tiny red bird and flies away. And then reappears when we are trying hard to forget them, when we think we have forgotten them, when we think we have learnt to live without them, when we utter those stupid words that we have ‘moved on’. It’s just a reminder that they may have gone but they haven’t really left yet.

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Major Ellie, an American pilot, crash lands in an unnamed desert country, where he is rescued by Momo, an enterprising teenage resident of a refugee camp. Momo's older brother Ali has disappeared after going to work for the Americans at a secret desert base, and Momo wants Ellie's help in getting his brother back. We also get the point of view of Mutt the dog who narrates several chapters. Several other characters play supporting roles, including Momo's mother and father, a do-gooder social worker conducting research on the life of a teenage boy in a refugee camp, and a doctor who really isn't a doctor. This seems intended to be a satire on the absurdities of war, but, despite occasional witty one-liners, it never achieves the power of a novel like Catch 22, and instead dissolves into the absurdities of surrealism. I never got into this.