In Other Rooms, Other Wonders - Tapa dura

'A stunning achievement a writer of enormous ambition, and he has the prodigious talent to match.' Mohsin Hamid 'An astonishing collection of tales' William Dalrymple 'This is a debut as auspicious as Jhumpa Lahiri's. From the outset there is something arresting, beautiful, or wise on every single page. I can hardly believe this book exists - it's so remarkable, I admire it so deeply' Nadeem Aslam 'His stories unfold with the authenticity and resolute momentum of timeless classics' Manil Suri

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.