Product Description

The linked stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders illuminate a place and a people as they describe the overlapping worlds of an extended Pakistani landowning family: the servants and dependents in Mr. K.K. Harouni's overflowing Lahore household, the peasants on his estates who rely on his favor, and the parallel world of his industrialist brother, who has distanced himself from the feudal past. Inextricably bound to each other, the characters confront the advantages and constraints of station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. A girl, a socialite from a decayed feudal family, tires of endless parties, of drinking and drugs, and marries a young landlord in an attempt to reinvent herself. A light-fingered electrician who by tricks and ingenuity supports his twelve daughters comes perilously close to losing all that he has worked for. Elsewhere, an aged laborer by a stroke of luck earns enough money to marry a young, mentally disturbed girl - who vanishes soon after the wedding, exposing the old man to charges of murder.These richly textured stories reveal - at times humorously, at times tragically - the complexities of Pakistani class and culture, as they describe the loves, triumphs, misunderstandings and tragedies of this diverse group of characters. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders marks the arrival of a major new literary talent.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14468 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
'Under Daniyal Mueenuddin's gaze, Pakistan is lit up as though by a lightning flash, clear, sharp-edged. This is a debut as auspicious as Jhumpa Lahiri's. From the outset there is something arresting, beautiful, or wise (as opposed to clever) on every single page. I can hardly believe this book exists - it's so remarkable, I admire it so deeply.' --Nadeem Aslam

`An astonishing collection of short stories by the new star of South Asian fiction'
--William Dalrymple

Review
'A stunning achievement. This superb collection ranges across a vast swath of contemporary Pakistan - from megacities to isolated villages, from feudal landlords to servant girls - and such is its narrative power that I couldn't stop turning the page. Daniyal Mueenuddin is a writer of enormous ambition, and he has the prodigious talent to match.'

Review
`An astonishing collection of tales...reveals a writer who seems to combine the intimate rural rootedness and gentle humour of RK Narayan with the literary sophistication and sylishness of Jhumpa Lahiri.'

Customer Reviews

`it's as difficult to have a meaningful life with a lot of money as without'
Wow! - this is an extraordinary collection of short stories. Even more extraordinary, since I've now looked him up and find that this is Daniyal Mueenuddin's debut as an author.

After reading the first story in this collection, which are all linked somehow to Mr K K Harouini or his houses or retinue, I was pleased that I had started reading. By the end I was simply astonished at the achievement.

Mueenudin's device allows him to explore different classes and types within Pakistan; from the old and new Punjabi farmers to the industrialists, from the upper class educated at Yale or Oxford and used to spending time in London and New York, to the servants and hangers on depending on patronage and the giving and receiving of favours in a society that's moved from the feudal to a new mobility in a staggeringly short period.

Corruption is everywhere. Those who are not calculating are cheated - Sohail, the nephew of MR K K Hourani, who has been shielded from much, is described as `a lamb fattened for the slaughter' by his own doting mother to his American girlfriend.

There is love but it is helpless against the stronger forces of family, money and status. As Sohail himself quotes `but the dull need to make some kind of house/ out of the life lived and the love spent'.

Women get a raw deal in this collection; the working class trade sex for advancement, food and clothes but it's transitory. The better born and moneyed are still dependent and bored by their restrictions or their revolt from those restrictions.

The language alters to suit the subjects of each story. It is simple, straightforward and earthy in the narrative of Nawabdin Electrician (who incidentally seems to have the only happy marriage in this book), and has resonances to match the voices of the more westernised and sophisticated dialogue in the stories Lily and Our Lady of Paris.

This collection reminded me of by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck, in that they give such a rich evocation of one country and its past (here Pakistan, in the other collection, Nigeria) and then juxtaposes that with the modern day and an American, rather than British colonial view.

I've been reading other Pakistani authors recently; Kamila Sahmsie and Nadeem Aslam. Mueenuddin is in the same league.

If this book were a novel rather than a collection of short stories I am sure it would be up for the big prizes. It deserves them.

Probably the best I have ever read
Absoltuley beautiful, enchanting, and amazingly original. Every character touches the heart. Probably the best stories I have ever read. There is a touch of genius here.

Astonishingly good
It's wise and humane, beautifully written and offers a deep insight on Pakistan. I can't remember the last time I read something as beautiful.