Author Mohammed Hanif bestowed with Sitara-e-Imtiaz

LAHORE: Acclaimed British-Pakistani writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif has become the recipient of the third-highest civilian award of Pakistan, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz.

The writer of the critically-acclaimed novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, which was long-listed for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book took to Twitter to announce the news.

“Thank you all for your lovely messages. Now can someone please tell me how does one collect it because GoP is a bit coy on the subject,” he wrote, adding that he was “thrilled at the prospects of meeting fellow winners Fidel and Amanullah. Hope we all get to party with President Mamnun.”

Thank you all for your lovely messages. Now can someone pls tell me how does one collect it because GoP is a bit coy on the subject. Thrilled at the prospects of meeting fellow winners Fidel and Amanullah. Hope we all get to party with President Mamnun

— mohammedhanif (@mohammedhanif) March 17, 2018

Mohammad Hanif was born in Okara, a small town in the province of Punjab. He graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy as a pilot officer but left it to pursue a career in journalism. He initially worked for Newsline and wrote for The Washington Post and India Today. A graduate of the University of East Anglia, Hanif moved to London to work for the BBC in 1996, where he remained until 2008. Along with being a journalist and novelist, Hanif is also a playwright.

Hanif’s work also includes a feature film, The Long Night (2002), a BBC radio play, What Now, Now That We Are Dead? and the stage play The Dictator’s Wife (2008). His second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, was published in 2011, while his next novel, titled Red Birds, has been acquired by Bloomsbury and is expected to release in September 2018.