This Is Where The Serpent Lives

Moving from Pakistan’s dazzling, chaotic cities to its lawless feudal countryside, This Is Where the Serpent Lives vividly evokes contemporary Pakistan through the intertwined destinies of a dozen unforgettable characters linked by violence and tragedy, triumph and love. Orphaned at a young age, Yazid survives on the streets before rising to a position of responsibility and respect in the Lahore household of Colonel Atar, a powerful industrialist and politician, only to have his place threatened by conflicting loyalties and misplaced trust. On the colonel’s country estate, Saqib, the poor gardener’s son, is given charge of a pioneering business, but his ambition leads him beyond his limits, turning him into an outlaw forced to confront the brutal corruption of the Punjab Police. Meanwhile, the colonel’s son competes with his beloved brother for the love of a woman, discovering that her choice brings both unexpected light and deep darkness into his life. Across stories of power, money, and the human heart, Mueenuddin’s characters struggle between moral justice and the compromises necessary for survival within rigid systems of caste, capital, and social power. Both intimate and epic, elegiac and deeply moving, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is a tour de force destined to become a classic of contemporary literature.