This is Where the Serpent Lives

A startling and breathtaking work of fiction that will be remembered as a classic multigenerational epic

ESQUIRE

Mueenuddin’s powerfully absorbing novel charts the intricate interplay between landowners and their servants in a feudal Pakistan

NEW YORKER

A marvellous, richly layered study of class and power and culture in Pakistan from the 60s almost into the present – as rich as a nineteenth-century novel in its psychological subtlety and the confident scope of its stories

GUARDIAN, Books of the summer 2026

Mueenuddin offers a profound meditation on identity, class and privilege in a deeply conservative and patriarchal society ... A masterful storyteller, bringing together beautifully realised characters and a compelling plot

OBSERVER

Expect to see this epic novel all over prize lists in 2026 ... Mueenuddin is a sort of literary magician ... It’s a rich stew of kindness betrayed and moral ambiguity that makes the reader angry and helpless; lots to think about, lots to feel

THE TIMES

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

An extraordinary book that had me on the edge of my seat

TOBY JONES

This is brilliant: a beautifully written, original, modern, vivid, beautiful, heartbreaking yet brutal novel of power & feudalism in Pakistan ... An instant classic ... the best modern novel I've read for a while

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

All the makings of a classic

VOGUE, All The Best Books To Look Out For In 2026

A very classic, elegant, immersive novel that is already getting comparisons to the Russian greats … This Is Where the Serpent Lives is funny. It has that fun upstairs-downstairs feeling to it… There are questions of class and even caste and religious division, but it’s so much more than that, because these are characters that are intimately entwined in each other’s lives, and I found it incredibly moving. And the way that Mueenuddin has this very detailed and intricate and understandable universe of characters – I loved it… Your favourite’s favourite book

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW PODCAST

This is an exceptional novel. From the opening pages, I knew I held a masterpiece in my hands

LITERARY REVIEW

A future classic, pure and simple ... One of those novels that renews your faith in the possibilities of novels, generally ... Mueenuddin moves effortlessly through the intricate worlds of Pakistan’s castes and classes, from cocaine-soaked parties and American educations to cucumber farming, arranged marriages and feudal law ... Immaculately and intimately Chekhovian. Simply put, the novel is a triumph

IRISH TIMES

It is a political novel in the deepest sense; it will win awards, and it will deserve them ... Mueenuddin has written a remarkable book

NEW STATESMAN

Spanning Pakistan’s bustling cities and feudal countryside, this sweeping novel follows three generations of unforgettable people as they grapple with tragedy and triumph, violence and love, and money and power. Absolutely gorgeous

PEOPLE

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

A feast of sustained noticing … Mueenuddin succeeds here in painting [the aristocratic] Yazid and Saqib and a host of secondary characters on the social ladder as distinct individuals, down to their faces and habits and family lives … Brilliant… The lives of these characters are of superb interest

ATLANTIC

A many-splendoured portrait of one of the most interesting and complex countries in the world, and a shining example of the very best literature

WASHINGTON POST

A Dickensian saga set in modern Pakistan ... This Is Where the Serpent Lives maps an entire society in flux over six decades while presenting half a dozen portraits of contradictory, sympathetic, flawed, and utterly believable individuals. This subtle, wide-ranging, and enthralling novel makes some demands of its readers, but repays them in full

BOSTON GLOBE

Masterful … A startling and breathtaking work of fiction that will be remembered as a classic multigenerational epic

ESQUIRE

Weaves a panoply of different characters together with a kaleidoscopic overview of Pakistan’s social upheaval and rural/urban conflicts following independence

BBC RADIO, THE ARTS HOUR

The politics of rich and poor across the countries of the Global South play out to powerful effect in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s Pakistan-set panorama of feudal conflict

NEW STATESMAN, The best fiction to read this year

The scope is panoramic, encompassing multiple characters, strikingly varied geographical, financial and social milieux and critical moments in the history of Pakistan … A work of mosaic structure and expansive power

FINANCIAL TIMES

This Is Where the Serpent Lives weaves from city to countryside, tenderness to violence, lawlessness to power. It is brilliantly, compellingly written … Expect to see it on shortlists everywhere soon

MARIE CLAIRE

Daniyal Mueenuddin conducts restless formal experimentation … He ventures into appropriately Russian territory indebted to Tolstoy or Pasternak … This is a richly dark text ... Recalls Alice Munro’s Canadian asymmetries and Shyam Selvadurai’s queering of form in a Sri Lankan context … This genre-defying, formally capacious, and ethically watchful text attains a sustained and original accounting of how old hierarchies are recast for a modern age

DAWN

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

A mesmerising debut novel ... The book is certainly deserving of the hype: This Is Where The Serpent Lives’s sharp, lyrical prose echoes Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and sets it up as an early contender for one of the books of 2026

BUZZ

Likely to be among the handful of the best novels of this year … A kaleidoscopic view of Pakistan … It is a masterclass in narrative tension where every choice carries the weight of history. A stunning achievement – one that confirms its author isn’t just ‘the Pakistani Chekhov,’ but a master in his own right

INDIA TODAY

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

Thrillingly alive … An extraordinary novel … easily one of the best of the year, and it’s only January

SCROLL.IN

From a wealthy landowner to a lowly errand boy, over a dozen lives are linked in shocking and unexpected ways in This is Where the Serpent Lives. Through violence and love, resilience and trauma, fate is often tied to your social station. But each character faces paths where morality can determine whether they stay rooted in the fate of their birth or break free and survive

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

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

This Is Where the Serpent Lives follows a dozen characters through the decades as they vie for respect, safety, power, and love between the country’s cities and farmlands. As they do, the moral choices and the advantageous ones brush against each other with delightful tension

CULTURED

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 unravelling 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

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

The much-anticipated debut ... Mueenuddin shows modern-day feudal Pakistan through the eyes of a host of characters linked to a farm. Following their stories, he reveals the steel grip of caste and social hierarchy in a country where being honest can mean failing to thrive or even survive

HERALD

‘A mesmerising debut novel ... Sharp, lyrical prose echoes Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and sets it up as an early contender for one of the books of 2026

BUZZ MAGAZINE

This superb Pakistan-set debut was published in January, but still plays in my mind ... A deserved contender for a Booker nod.

DAILY MAIL, Best books of the summer