Passing from the mannered drawing rooms of Pakistan s cities to the harsh mud villages beyond, Daniyal Mueenuddin s linked stories describe the interwoven lives of an aging feudal landowner, his servants and managers, and his extended family, industrialists who have lost touch with the land. In the spirit of Joyce s Dubliners and Turgenev s A Sportsman s Sketches, these stories comprehensively illuminate a world, describing members of parliament and farm workers, Islamabad society girls and desperate servant women. A hard-driven politician at the height of his powers falls critically ill and seeks to perpetuate his legacy; a girl from a declining Lahori family becomes a wealthy relative s mistress, thinking there will be no cost; an electrician confronts a violent assailant in order to protect his most valuable possession; a maidservant who advances herself through sexual favors unexpectedly falls in love. Together the stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders make up a vivid portrait of feudal Pakistan, describing the advantages and constraints of social station, the dissolution of old ways, and the shock of change. Refined, sensuous, by turn humorous, elegiac, and tragic, Mueenuddin evokes the complexities of the Pakistani feudal order as it is undermined and transformed.

达尼亚尔•穆伊努丁，毕业于耶鲁法学院，曾以富布莱特学者身份在挪威从事研究，在回到巴基斯坦经营家族农场前，曾在纽约当律师。最近刚刚结束了在普罗文斯顿艺术中心的驻馆作家身份，目前多在开罗和巴基斯坦两地居住。