Hawk and Hyena is a short memoir of Charles Sobhraj, the infamous serial killer, written by Farrukh Dhondy. Farrukh Dhondy is not an unfamiliar name in the literary, journalistic, television and film industries and he is known for his writings across several genres including biographies, children’s literature, novels, screenplays and more. The current memoir, Hawk and Hyena is the outcome of Dhondy’s prolonged acquaintanceship with Charles Sobhraj since the year 1997. Amongst several other multi-genre works that recount the life and crimes of Sobhraj such as Richard Neville and Julie Clarke’s novel Shadow of the Cobra: The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj, Thomas Thompson’s Serpentine, the Bollywood film Charles and Me, the BBC broadcast drama series titled The Serpent which was recently featured on Netflix and Farrukh Dhondy’s own fictional account, The Bikini Murders, Hawk and Hyena is the most recent one and covers a period of Sobhraj’s life which has not yet been written about.
August 2023, volume 47, No 8