Tobias Matern in conversation with Mohammed Hanif
PAKISTAN – A CASE OF AN EXPLOSIVE SOCIETY?
Pakistan has recently drawn international media attention due to
renewed tensions with neighboring power India. The ongoing
conflict in the disputed region of Kashmir was again at the brink
of an escalation but has been luckily contained, raising concerns
about the potential for open confrontation between the two
nuclear-armed states. At the same time, Pakistan faces
significant internal challenges: military dominance, declining
civic freedoms, deep-rooted social inequality shape the fabric of
daily life – and Islamic extremists challenge the state. “In
Pakistan, the tap water should contain anti-depressants so that
people don´t lose their minds”, says Mohammed Hanif.
From his unique and insightful perspective, Hanif will offer an
in-depth look at contemporary Pakistani society—and reflect on
the direction in which the country is headed.
Mohammed Hanif is a British-Pakistani
novelist, journalist, and playwright born in Okara, Pakistan, in
November 1965. A former pilot officer trained at the Pakistan Air
Force Academy, he transitioned to journalism and later to fiction
writing. His debut novel, A Case of Exploding
Mangoes (2008), was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won
the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Novel. Hanif’s
subsequent works include Our Lady of Alice
Bhatti (2011), Red Birds (2018), and the opera
libretto Bhutto. He writes regularly for The New York
Times, The Guardian, and the BBC, and divides his time
between Karachi and London.
Tobias Matern, born in 1978, is head of
international politics at the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. He
studied political science in Berlin and attended the American
University School of Journalism in Washington D.C. on a Fulbright
scholarship. Matern has been with SZ since 2004. He was a
correspondent for South and Southeast Asia based in Delhi and
Bangkok during the height of the war in Afghanistan. He has
interviewed and portrayed comedians, ministers, presidents,
writers and psychotherapists in South Asia. He curated an
exhibition on Afghanistan for the ‘Fünf Kontinente’ museum in
Munich and published the book ‘Augenblick Afghanistan – Angst und
Sehnsucht in einem versehrten Land’.
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