This is Where the Serpent Lives
Published by: Bloomsbury Publishing
Moving from Pakistan’s sophisticated cities to its most rural farmlands, a novel which captures the extraordinary proximity of extreme wealth to extreme poverty in a land where fate is determined by class and social station.
Daniyal Mueenuddin’s This Is Where the Serpent Lives paints a powerful portrait of contemporary feudal Pakistan and a farm on which the destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters are linked through violence and love, resilience, and tragedy. Yazid rises from abject poverty to the role of trusted servant to an affluent gangster; Saqib, an errand boy, is eventually trusted to lead his boss’s new farming venture, where he becomes determined to rise above his rank by any means necessary. Saqib’s boss, the wealthy landowner Hisham, reminisces about meeting his wife while she was dating his brother while Gazala, a young teacher, falls for Saqib and his bold promises for their future before learning about his plans to skim money from the farm’s profits.
In matters of both business and the heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle to choose between the paths that are moral and the paths that will allow them to survive the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their country.
Read an extract from the book here.
Our judges said:
Readers who remember Daniyal Mueenuddin’s debut short-story collection back in 2009 will find their patience rewarded in this, his first novel. Set against the backdrop of Pakistan’s chaotic cities and its still feudal countryside, This is Where the Serpent Lives is a vast family story — evocative and beautifully written — about class, wealth and politics. And it has a suitably Orwellian ending. Hollywood, take note!"
