Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Story Prize
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Finalist for the National Book Award
Finalist for the
Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
Trade Review"Reading Daniyal Mueenuddin’s mesmerizing first collection is like watching a game of blackjack, the shrewd players calculating their way beyond their dealt cards in an attempt to beat the dealer…In this labyrinth of power games and exploits, Mueenuddin instills luminous glimmers of longing, loss and, most movingly, unfettered love." -- New York Times Book Review
"
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a collection full of pleasures…on every page there are wonderful, surprising observations and details." -- Washington Post
"The eight short stories of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s enchanting debut are dreamlike, illuminating contemporary Pakistan’s societal contradictions in prose as clear and serene as the contradictions themselves are subtle and tumultuous." -- Boston Globe
"Like Turgenev…Mueenuddin has an eye for the tragedy and beauty in lives that a lesser writer might regard merely as miserable or eccentric…In recent years, Pakistan has been regarded in the West with anger and horror. Perhaps Mueenuddin’s portrait will help to bring it a different kind of attention, colored with sorrow and even fondness." -- New York Review of Books
"Remarkable.… a poignant picture of Punjabi life." -- The Economist
"[Mueenuddin’s] crisp, vivid voice glides effortlessly into his various characters’ heads.… Dark stuff, but full of beauty." -- Entertainment Weekly
"An elegant stylist with a light touch, Mueenuddin invites the reader to a richly human, wondrous experience." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Daniyal Mueenuddin takes us into a sumptuously created world, peopled with characters who are both irresistible and compellingly human. His stories unfold with the authenticity and resolute momentum of timeless classics." -- Manil Suri
"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." -- Mohsin Hamid
"Daniyal Mueenuddin’s Pakistanis are like Chekhov’s Russians, so fully realized that we never wonder over what motivates them. They are living, breathing presences—sometimes brought so close that, I daresay, you hear the sounds of their breathing and the roll of gravel under their feet.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders brings us a new way of seeing the world, and it is one that we could not have anticipated." -- Elizabeth Evans, author of Carter Clay
