See Pulitzer Prize Finalist Daniyal Mueenuddin’s New Novel (Exclusive)

While he has plenty of acclaim for his work, including as a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Awards, Pakistani-American author Daniyal Mueenuddin is now preparing to release his first novel. 

This Is Where the Serpent Lives will be released on Jan. 16, 2026 from Knopf, and PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the stunning cover, crafted by Pakistani painter Salman Toor.

Toor has been designated an “art name to know” by the Financial Times and the New York Times called him “one of the most fascinating painters of his generation” in a profile last month. 

This Is Where the Serpent Lives takes place in Pakistan and “captures the extraordinary proximity of extreme wealth to extreme poverty in a land where fate is determined by class and social station,” according to the book’s description. The story will follow “a dozen unforgettable characters” who are “linked through violence and love, resilience and tragedy.” 

“This book describes a place and personalities that are close to my heart,” author Mueenuddin tells PEOPLE in a statement. “Pakistan is colorful, vivid and heartbreaking, is brutal and deep – beautiful exactly because it is such a fraught place.” 

Mueenuddin, whose father was Pakistani and who spent his childhood in Pakistan, adds that the country is “largely unknown or known only through stereotypes.” 

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As an author, he hopes to showcase the complexities of Pakistan for American readers. 

“It gives me great pleasure to share my perceptions of the place with my audience in the West – to let them experience a place so different from what they know – and to ask this audience to see more deeply into the minds and hearts of these characters, who are superficially so different from them,” he notes. 

Mueenuddin’s book of short stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, which was released in 2009, earned him a place as a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and the 2010 National Book Award.

This Is Where the Serpent Lives by Daniyal Muneenuddin comes out Jan. 13 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.