by Lee A. Carlisle
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, and The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by Salman Rushdie. For a number of years he practiced law in New York. He now lives on a farm in Pakistan’s southern Punjab. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, his debut short story collection, was published this February.
Q: When you initially wrote and published “Nawabdin Electrician,” did you already have the idea for the larger work In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, into which it would later fit?
A: Yes, I’d been thinking for a long time that I wanted to create a unified world—as Balzac does—and as Faulkner and others do. The idea is that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. I’m continuing this project with the novel that I’m now writing. A number of the characters will appear in larger—or smaller—roles.
Q: The world of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is very interconnected, but the individual stories also function very well on their own—how did you handle working on them with this in mind?
A: Not difficult—I began at one end and just worked through, filling in wherever my fancy led me. I wrote twenty or more pieces, some fiction and some non-fiction, but all concerned with the various strata of Pakistani society described in my book. I then selected the ones that seemed to work best together.
Q: According to your biography, you were raised in (among other places) Lahore, Pakistan, which is where many of the stories from Other Rooms take place or are tied to. How long did you live there and would you cite it as one of the main influences on your writing?
A: Definitely. This is my homeland, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I still live in Pakistan. I’m writing this from a farm in south Punjab.
Q: What other places or experiences have had a major impact on your writing?
A: Everywhere I’ve lived, everyone I’ve known, every book I’ve read—writing is not a profession but rather a life, a manner of living.
Q: Are the characters and locations from Other Rooms something you plan on returning to in more stories?
“Writing is not an industry—it’s a bunch of people sitting alone in rooms…”A: Yes—see above. For example, in my next novel, I hope to give Husna a second chance, allowing her to achieve her ambitions—like Madame Verdurin in Proust’s great novel, who reappears as the Duchesse de Guermantes.
Q: Your biography also mentions that you attended law school and have practiced law in New York. How did you manage your writing during these times and was it always something you hoped to be able to do professionally?
A: I began writing fiction after I quit practicing. In fact, I quit practicing law in order to write fiction. Up till that point I’d written only poetry. My ambition had been to be a poet, never a fiction writer. During law school I wrote a fair amount, but then almost nothing when I joined a law firm. A first or second or third year associate in a big NY law firm has no leisure time, or very little—you sleep, you eat, you work.
Q: What is your process like? Do you have a set routine that you follow? What kind of conditions do you work best under?
A: Up early, write a minimum of three hundred and fifty words—then quit if I don’t feel like doing more. Sometimes I’ll go all day, write several thousand words, but probably I average seven or eight hundred. Many many drafts. I work under all conditions—jack hammers, airplanes overhead, and lunch to make don’t phase me—though I do have a bit of an internet problem—must fight to keep from reading the New York Times cover to cover.
Q: What are some of your favorite things about working in the short story form?
A: The purity of it—no extraneous bits allowed or wanted. The arc is clean. And then, I’m done in a month or so, and have the satisfaction of looking at it, showing it to friends, and then putting it behind me.
Q: Who are some writers whose work you greatly admire (as an influence, or just enjoyment)?
A: Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Joyce, Proust, Borges, Berryman, W. Stevens, Lowell, Auden, etc. Very plain vanilla.
Q: Outside of writing and law, what are some of your other passions?
A: Farming is my other great love—though I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to indulge this passion, given the situation in Pakistan—which is where I live and write—and farm.
Q: Do you have any advice for writers looking to break into the industry?
A: It’s not an industry—it’s a bunch of people sitting alone in rooms exercising their hearts and minds. If you’re in it because you want to be famous or rich then definitely do something else. The chances of failure are incredibly high. It’s about the writing, not about being part of the industry. As everyone who writes seriously will tell you—if you can possibly imagine any other career, from Anthropology to Zoology, then follow that other calling.
