Description

Intimate and epic, elegiac and profoundly moving: a tour de force destined to become a classic of contemporary literature

‘Set to be a standout novel of 2026 … Brutal, funny and brilliantly told’ Patrick Gale, Guardian
‘All the makings of a classic’ Vogue
‘Expect to see this novel all over prize lists in 2026 … Mueenuddin is a literary magician’ The Times
‘Masterful storytelling’ Daily Mail
‘A book you’ll be hearing about again’ New York Times
‘An excoriating epic of class and power’ Observer

Moving from Pakistan’s sophisticated cities to its most rural farmlands, This Is Where the Serpent Lives 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.

‘Stunning’ Los Angeles Times
‘Mueenuddin recalls Chekhov … But another writer comes to mind as well – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, whose 1958 The Leopard offers a layered totalizing portrait of a society that is both changing and failing to change. This Is Where the Serpent Lives has that kind of ambition and captures its world in the same exhilarating and unsparing way’ Wall Street Journal
‘A work of mosaic structure and expansive power’ Financial Times
‘The best fiction to read this year’ New Statesman
‘A shining example of the very best literature’ Washington Post
‘A Dickensian saga set in modern Pakistan’ Boston Globe

Publisher Review

Set to be a standout novel of 2026 ... Brutal, funny and brilliantly told ... Mueenuddin's writing is always fluent and often very funny. He brings the smells and tastes of Pakistan to vibrant life; the birds and trees feel as present as the weight of history and the impossible tangles within tangles of corruption and responsibility ... The portrayals are immediate, the storytelling instantly involving -- PATRICK GALE * GUARDIAN * These are absorbing studies of class, caste and character; of mores and manners; with greed, corruption and entitlement pulsing throughout. There's a poised, timeless quality to the masterful storytelling, which - travelling as it does between parched farms, opulent salons and the immensity of the Pakistani landscape - makes this feel at once like a classic * DAILY MAIL * Sensitive and powerful ... Mueenuddin has an exacting sense of social hierarchy, especially of dignity on its last legs, and the multiple meanings of a glance, a touch, a vocal inflection, a phone call not placed... a serious book that you'll be hearing about again, later in the year, when the shortlists for the big literary prizes are announced * NEW YORK TIMES * Stunning ... Mueenuddin, whose gift for satire shines whether he's describing society matrons or gangsters, never loses sight of his theme: How do any of us ever manage to justify our treatment of the underserved? * LOS ANGELES TIMES * Daniyal Mueenuddin has a scalpel sharp ability to observe and expose the psychology of power and powerlessness in Pakistani society. This is beautifully crafted, emotionally mature and epic storytelling. A singular voice -- ARIFA AKBAR This is Where the Serpent Lives works on the scale of great epics, expanding and contracting emotional and biological time while anchored to the tale of a single friendship. With sentences that charm and characters that basically walk off the page into your life, Mueenuddin has given us a family saga recognizable far outside of Pakistan ... It reminded me what good fiction of the long lens and wide scope does: create characters we want alive, among us -- LALEH KHADIVI Vividly drawn, and though his prose is spare, it also offers phrases of great beauty ... Mueenuddin recalls Chekhov's feel for the way people can be swallowed by the rules of the world around them, and also the sense of the accidents that can change the course of a life ... But another writer comes to mind as well - the Sicilian aristocrat Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, whose 1958 The Leopard offers a layered totalizing portrait of a society that is both changing and failing to change. This Is Where the Serpent Lives has that kind of ambition and captures its world in the same exhilarating and unsparing way * WALL STREET JOURNAL * The Pakistani-American writer's 2009 story collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, was a Pulitzer finalist. Like his debut, his first novel is set in Pakistan, moving between bustling cities and agricultural estates, interrogating the country's class dynamics through an epic portrait spanning six decades * GUARDIAN, Debut fiction to look out for in 2026 * The story threads cohere into a profound and revelatory portrait of Pakistan's class divisions. Propulsive and peopled with unforgettable characters, this is a masterpiece * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * In his debut, the Pulitzer Prize - and National Book Award - finalist story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009), Mueenuddin deployed elegant prose to harshly critique a callow and often corrupt Pakistani aristocracy. In this new book, his passion for the theme has only deepened ... A potent and nuanced work about the abuse of an underclass in ways both subtle and overt * KIRKUS * Intricately layered ... Mueenuddin writes cinematically, examining and unraveling relationships with meticulous detail and stinging insights, spotlighting the grey areas between the impossible absolutes of right and wrong * BOOKLIST * Praise for Daniyal Mueenuddin: Probably the best fiction ever written in English about Pakistan, and one of the best to come out of south Asia in a very long time -- William Dalrymple * Financial Times * Each of the stories opens a door on to a life you had never expected, shines a light for a while and quietly closes the door again ... Mueenuddin writes with the freshness of an exile and the intimacy of an insider about Pakistani culture * Observer * Intense with emotion ... So engrossing that there is a wrench when one ends and the next must begin * Sunday Times * Marks the arrival of a highly sophisticated literary talent * Guardian * In Other Rooms, Other Wonders may be fiction but it is of such an authentic stamp that it is history as well, more so by the day, and deserves to be read as such * The Times * Mesmerising ... In this labyrinth of power games and exploits, Mueenuddin inserts luminous glimmers of longing, loss and, most movingly, unfettered love * New York Times Book Review * The voice of Pakistan from within Pakistan ... A fresh perspective * Wall Street Journal * All the makings of a classic -- VOGUE, All The Best Books To Look Out For In 2026