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Daniyal Mueenuddin Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Daniyal Mueenuddin

Daniyal Mueenuddin

How to pronounce Daniyal Mueenuddin: The-nee-yaal Moo-ee-noo-deen

Daniyal Mueenuddin Biography

Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan and Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, The Best American Short Stories 2008, and the PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2010. He is the 2010 winner of The Story Prize, an annual book award for short story collections, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and the LA Times Book Prize. For a number of years he practiced law in New York. He now lives on a farm in Pakistan's southern Punjab.

Daniyal Mueenuddin's website

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Interview

Daniyal Mueenuddin, author of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, talks about his life growing up in Pakistan, and how his understanding of both American and Pakistani cultures led him to become a writer.

For many years I have run a farm in Pakistan's southern Punjab. Most of the stories in this book have their origins in my experiences there, and many were written there. Half-Pakistani and half-American, I have spent equal amounts of time in each country, and so, knowing both cultures well and belonging to both, I equally belong to neither, look at both with an outsider's eye. These stories are written from that place in between, written to help both me and my reader bridge the gap.

My father was a graduate of Oxford, a member first of the Indian and then after Partition of the Pakistani civil service – and, most fundamentally, a land owner of the old Punjabi feudal class. My American mother, a reporter with the Washington Post, met my father in Washington, where he was negotiating a treaty. She was twenty seven years younger than him. They married and soon after – in 1960 – moved back to Pakistan.

We lived in Lahore, where I attended the American School until I was thirteen, my classmates the children of westernized Pakistanis or of the few foreigners pursuing their oblique lives in this marginal place. My family spent most vacations on the farm that I now manage, where I ran ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Daniyal Mueenuddin at BookBrowse
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Daniyal Mueenuddin but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Aamina Ahmad

    Aamina Ahmad

    Aamina Ahmad, a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, The Southern ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

    Try:
    The Return of Faraz Ali
    by Aamina Ahmad

  • Ayad Akhtar

    Ayad Akhtar

    Ayad Akhtar is a novelist and playwright. His work has been published and performed in over two dozen languages. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and an Award in Literature from the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

    Try:
    American Dervish
    by Ayad Akhtar

We recommend 9 similar authors

View all 9 Read-Alikes

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