Mohammed Hanif’s new novel: Pakistan’s OK Town erupts in protest when a political figure is hanged

Molly Rafique must have planned it this way, although he would insist forever that it was all Allah’s will. When Molly sneaks his young lady friend into the academy, Sir Baghi is finally enjoying an afternoon of solitude. He had sent his students home the moment they heard a newspaper hawker shouting in the street about the hanging. Baghi knows that it will be a very long weekend. He wants to use this unexpected holiday to mark papers, review his syllabus and read the fourth chapter of To the Lighthouse. He also plans a visit to Venus cinema for a matinee in the hope of finding some random afternoon love. It’s not in his nature to be optimistic but he is hoping that the cinema won’t be shut down.

Molly’s lady friend carries a faded sea-green sports bag, with the logo of a panther in the middle of a leap, “Pride of OK Town” inscribed under the panther in fading gold letters. She is wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms, a white dupatta embroidered with white and yellow nargis flowers loosely draped around her neck, a girl old enough to know that she needs a dupatta but young enough not to know what...

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