In Daniyal Mueenuddin's gorgeously subtle, perfectly spare collection of eight linked stories about an extended family of Pakistani landowners, we are able to see characters struggling with the norms Pakistani society has placed on them. We are huge suckers for linked stories and these are so well done it took our breath away. Other Rooms, Other Wonders just won a slew of prizes (including the Story Prize) and was a finalist for the National Book Award, so many folks believe he is the favorite to win in this category. A recent congratulatory tweet about his Story win got a ton of RTs...so there's your unscientific polling on his chances. If there was a shoo-in in this category, Mueenuddin's book is it.

I was sitting right behind Daniyal Mueenuddin in a dark Manhattan auditorium when he was announced the winner of the $20,000 Story Prize.

Last night at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, the Pakistani-American writer Daniyal Mueenuddin was awarded the Story Prize for his excellent collection “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” several stories of which first appeared in The New Yorker. The prize—a whopping $20,000—is the largest of any annual American book award.

In eight textured stories that stretch across decades, Daniyal Mueenuddin illuminates feudal Pakistan and its decay. Whether he's writing in the contemporary moment or of times long past, he evokes characters with empathy and a clear eye; their choices feel vital, hopeful, wrenching. Each story, on its own, shines; layered together, there is a celebration of the beauty of the landscape, humor in the everyday, the irrefutable power of family and a lingering sadness for all who have not gotten quite what they wanted.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders earned Daniyal Mueenuddin the $20,000 Story Prize last week. He beat out two other finalists, who will also take home a cash prize of $5,000 each.

In a ceremony at the New School in New York City on Wednesday night, Daniyal Mueenuddin was awarded the 2009 Story Prize for his collection "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders." The collection has received many commendations -- it was a finalist for the National Book Award and is nominated for the L.A. Times book prize for first fiction -- and Mueenuddin has been running to keep up with them. He splits his time between his farm in Pakistan -- the setting for the stories in his book -- and cities like New York and London.

Writer Daniyal Mueenuddin won the Story Prize for short fiction on Wednesday for "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders," a compendium of eight interconnected short stories set in the 1980s amid feudal lands in southern Pakistan.
Mueenuddin, a former lawyer who lives in London and Punjab, thanked his agent and his recently deceased mother after being presented the sixth annual award, which includes a $20,000 prize.

In his interview, Mueenuddin (pictured, via) talked about growing up on his family farm in Pakistan (which he now manages). "I was brought up by servants," he said, but stressed that his experiences on the farm were crucial for his writing. "One of the problems for writers is that they live as writers," he concluded. "That does not provide very much material."

Science/Technology: Naming Nature by Carol Kaesuk Yoon. Biography: Dorothea Lange by Linda Gordon. Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin.

The shortlist for regional winners has been unveiled in the race to win the influential 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

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.

It is impossible to say enough about these subtle, deep, painful stories which remind me of Chekhov.

Daniyal Mueenuddin was raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and Elroy, Wisconsin, and practiced law in New York for a few years before deciding to reside on a farm in Pakistan’s southern Punjab region. This geographical mix to his background is certainly prevalent in the emotionally lavish and densely interconnected pieces gathered within In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, one of the more exciting short story collections of recent years.

There are few absolutes, but I’m almost certain that there aren’t two Wisconsin farmers out there who also tend land in Pakistan. And that only one Pakistani farmer is also a 2009 National Book Award finalist.

Daniyal Mueenuddin, all these things and more, lands in the Midwest today for a regional book tour for "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders," and he says it feels like a homecoming.

It's not every day that you pick up a book cover and read that its author was "brought up in Lahore, Pakistan and Elroy, Wisconsin." But Daniyal Mueenuddin, son of an American mother

This year's finalists for The Story Prize are:

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (W. W. Norton)
Drift by Victoria Patterson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

Because of Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Mistry, to mention just a few of the most prominent authors, American readers have long been able to enjoy one terrific Indian novel after another. But Daniyal Mueenuddin's IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS, is likely to be the first book by a Pakistani writer.

One book I enjoyed talking about in hardcover that's just blown out the door in paperback is Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. We sold 9 copies of the book, which is very nice, but we're close to 50 in paperback already.

Every newspaper and magazine has released lists of their favorite books from the past year. The Daily Beast presents the ultimate best-of-the-year list by compiling the books that have appeared on the most lists (from The New York Times to the Chicago Tribune to The Economist) to come up with our definitive list of the best fiction and nonfiction this year.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (buy it) takes readers into modern Pakistan through a series of vivid short stories by Daniyal Mueenuddin.