An Enemy of the People

Mac Mackenjee is a tax collector in a country that refuses to pay taxes on principle and in an age when populism is on the rise. Mac is an expert at uncovering hidden ‘black money’ and soon finds himself unravelling a high-level conspiracy to loot public company revenues. Meanwhile, his wife Tejal, a lawyer, defends a young revolutionary accused of destroying statues and burning buses. As these two strands intersect, Mac and Tejal are entangled in a web of tax cheats, forensic investigators, activists, politicians, billionaires, and even a baker. Amidst rising threats, the couple grapples with their minority status and the universal middle-class challenge of finding the right school for their sons.

Imraan Coovadia is the author of the novels The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves, High Low In-between, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, Tales of the Metric System, and A Spy in Time. He has also published a study of VS Naipaul, as well as a collection of essays, Transformations, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, N+1, The Independent, Threepenny Review, Chimurenga, and The Times of India. He is a winner of the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, the University of Johannesburg Prize, the M-Net Prize, and a South African Literary Award for Non-Fiction. A graduate of Harvard College, he directs the creative writing programme at the University of Cape Town.