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    Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
    Unavailable
    Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
    Unavailable
    Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
    Audiobook8 hours

    Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

    Written by Mohammed Hanif

    Narrated by Nimra Bucha

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the author of the acclaimed A Case of Exploding Mangoes ("An insanely brilliant, satirical first novel...Belongs in a tradition that includes Catch-22" - The Washington Post), a subversively, often shockingly funny new novel set in steaming Karachi, about second chances, thwarted ambitions and love in the most unlikely places. The patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments need a miracle. Alice Bhatti may be just what they're looking for. She's the new junior nurse, but that's the only ordinary thing about her. She's just been released from the Borstal Jail for Women and Children. But more to the point, she's the daughter of a part-time healer in the French Colony, Karachi's infamous Christian slum, and it seems she has, unhappily, inherited his part-time gift. With a bit of begrudging but inspired improvisation, Alice begins to bring succor to the patients lining the hospital's corridors and camped outside its gates. But all is not miraculous. Alice is a Christian in an Islamic world, ensnared in the red tape of hospital bureaucracy, trapped by the caste system, torn between her duty to her patients, her father and her husband - who is a former bodybuilding champion, now an apprentice to the nefarious "Gentleman's Squad" of the Karachi police, and about to drag Alice into a situation so dangerous that perhaps not even a miracle will be able to save them. But, of course, Alice Bhatti is no ordinary young woman... At once a high comedy of errors and a searing illumination of the seemingly unchangeable role of women in Pakistan's lower-caste society, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is a resounding confirmation of Mohammed Hanif's gifts of storytelling and of razor-sharp social satire.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateMay 29, 2012
    ISBN9781611208108
    Unavailable
    Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

    3/5

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    • 4/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and found it by no means lacking in characterization or plot. it comes in the up market genre. I applaud Mohammad Hanif for tackling an ignored segment of Pakistani society so well. I relished the writing with its biting tone and comedic cynicism, and found the role of Alice to be heroic and unforgettable. All characters seem true to life as I personally knew someone like Joseph Bhatti and Alice Bhatti. very sad though true depiction of life in the slums in Pakistan.
    • 2/5
      There is no doubt that Mohammed Hanif is a master of juggling wit, irony, dry humour and the various problems in our society. Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is an excellent example of that smooth juggle.However, when compared to A Case of Exploding Mangoes, one does feel that this novel does not match up to it's predecessor's greatness in prose and style.Still, it was a good read showing a very different perspective.The best thing about Hanif Sahib's writing is that the reader is allowed to look through the eyes of various characters in various walks of life which gives the reader the opportunity to decide what is right and what is wrong and what is just what it is, rather than having the writer decide it for him/her. This gives the reader a sense of empowerment.It is a joy to read his writing!
    • 2/5
      Satire, humour, and pathos combine to create this quirky story involving junior nurse Alice Bhatti. It is outrageous, crude, ribald, tragic, wretched, yet reveals a poignant acceptance of an oppressive life. However, the characters lacked colour and failed to hold my interest.
    • 4/5
      What a good book! Social satire, yes, and there is quite of bit humor in here, but its often an incredulous chuckle and a "god, do people really *do* those things?" The world in which junior nurse Alice Bhatti lives is dirty, violent, and bleak. The system is not one that treats women or poor people or people of lower castes (caste systems still exist?? yes they do) well. Violence, whether physical or sexual, is a tool used freely and Alice Bhatti is an exceptional woman in that she doesn't quietly put up with it. Whether its a rich man trying to sexually assault her, or a crazed lover trying to get her attention in all the wrong ways, Alice Bhatti stands up for herself (albeit not always with great results). A complicated story, with off the wall characters and tragicomedy to spare. Wonderful writing, a biting look at the plight of women and other oppressed groups in modern Pakistan.
    • 2/5
      The latest novel by Mohammed Hanif, author of the Booker Prize longlisted novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes, is set in contemporary Karachi, Pakistan in the Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments, a public hospital formerly established by the Catholic Church and led by a Catholic chief medical officer but staffed by Muslim doctors and nurses. Alice Bhatti is a newly hired nurse who trained at Sacred Heart, but was forced to leave due to her outspoken Christian beliefs and a trumped up conviction of attempted murder. She is single, attractive and well endowed, which makes her the source of unwanted attention from male patients and visitors to Sacred Heart. She is friends with Noor, a teenage street urchin who has managed to obtain a jack of all trades position at Sacred Heart while caring for his mother, who is dying from three cancers. Noor is also friends with Teddy Butt, a bodybuilder with a violent temper who works with but is not a member of the G Squad, a shadowy arm of the Pakistani police which captures, tortures and kills insurgents that terrorize the civilian population. Teddy falls in love with Alice, who suddenly agrees to marry him after rejecting his initial advances. Their flawed relationship, Teddy's troubled activities with the G Squad and Alice's apparent ability to bring the dead and dying to life form the major subjects of this novel. Unfortunately, I found [Our Lady of Alice Bhatti] to be quite implausible, as its stories about medical practice and the daily workings of a large public hospital strained credulity, and its characters were dull and inscrutable. The novel consisted of a series of connected events rather than a cohesive story, and by the end I had completely lost interest in what happened to Alice, Teddy and Noor.
    • 4/5
      After spending over a year in a women's prison on some jacked up manslaughter charges, Alice Bhatti secures a job as a junior nurse in a Catholic hospital in the predominantly Muslim city of Karachi. There, she fights to salvage some amount of pride as she fends off roaming hands and gun-toting suitors. In the midst of this chaos, she manages to save a few lives. But is she performing miracles? Hanif's narrative has some truly beautiful moments, but I was left wondering: What's the point? There wasn't really a story-line...it was just a series of events. The scenery and characters supported the novel, but they lacked plot. This book was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust book prize, and I understand why - it displays the woes of practicing medicine in a religiously-charged, seedy environment. I certainly have a better appreciation, now, for medical practitioners in neighborhoods like this. I was moved by the characters, but not enthralled by the story.
    • 3/5
      There are some wonderful passages in this book, capturing the chaos and senseless violence in a city like Karachi, as well as the despair of people trapped in a cycle of poverty and oppression. But the plot seems to lack direction and is often uncomfortably dark, making this a difficult book to read continuously.
    • 4/5
      This is Hanif’s second book, following the excellent [A Case of Exploding Mangoes]. The story follows a Christian nurse named Alice Bhatti working at a public hospital in Karachi and a police tout (unofficial muscle for when the police want to do things on the down-low) named ‘Teddy’ Butt, who fall in love. Complications ensue, ultimately leading to a tragic ending.The language is rich, at times too rich, with sentences bursting at the seam with overripe imagery and lurid prose. The tone is earthy, vulgar and intense as we are bombarded with images, colours, smells, sounds – a barrage of impressions of the seedy underbelly of the city of Karachi. It deals with the themes of intolerance, misogyny, brutality, and the unlikely origins of hope – the grandest of themes write large across a gaudy canvas. The biggest drawback in my mind is that the narrative stutters and skitters from image to image without really giving the characters a chance to gel. Hanif is better at writing set-pieces – the novel feels like a series of set-pieces or vignettes strung together rather than an organic whole. As a result the characters don’t properly come alive. Its like we are seeing snapshots of them at particular moments rather than their development over the course of the doomed love affair. As a result I feel its easier to engage with the setting than with the characters. And the setting is so sordid for the most part that I can see a lot of people getting turned off with the whole thing.