The son of a Pakistani civil servant and an American writer, Daniyal Mueenuddin grew up in Lahore and Wisconsin, trained as a lawyer in the U.S. and then returned to rural Pakistan to run his family's farm. He writes in an unadorned, mesmerizing style with both a deep understanding of Pakistani culture and an appreciation for what Western audiences know, or don't know, about life in a country that features far more prominently in the news than on the fiction shelf. The eight stories that make up his debut collection are marked by conflict and corruption he's especially attuned to the subtle power struggles that can infect a household but in this bleak environment, it's the little victories that keep his characters hopeful.