Daniyal Mueenuddin on This is Where the Serpent Lives
How do you choose between morality and survival?
Join acclaimed author Daniyal Mueenuddin as he presents This is Where the Serpent Lives, an intimate and epic novel that captures the extraordinary proximity of extreme wealth to extreme poverty in contemporary Pakistan.
Yazid rises from abject poverty to the role of trusted servant to an affluent gangster; Saqib, an errand boy, is eventually trusted to lead his boss's new farming venture, where he becomes determined to rise above his rank by any means necessary. Saqib's boss, the wealthy landowner Hisham, reminisces about meeting his wife while she was dating his brother while Gazala, a young teacher, falls for Saqib and his bold promises for their future before learning about his plans to skim money from the farm's profits.
In matters of both business and the heart, Mueenuddin's characters struggle to choose between the paths that are moral and the paths that will allow them to survive the systems of caste, capital, and social power that so tightly grip their country.
Interviewed by writer Gurnaik Johal, join us for an evening exploring the complex intersections of class, morality, and survival in contemporary Pakistan, the intimacy required to write truthfully about one's homeland, and how fiction can illuminate the human cost of systems built on inequality.
"Probably the best fiction ever written in English about Pakistan." William Dalrymple

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of This is Where the Serpent Lives (RRP £18.99) deliverable to any UK address.
The event will initially be broadcast on 19 January at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].