News Release

110 E. Hallam Street, No. 116, Aspen, CO, 81611 Tel. 970-925-3122 • Fax 970-920-5700 www.aspenwriters.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lisa Consiglio Executive Director Aspen Writers’ Foundation 970-925-3122, ext. 1# | [email protected]

FICTION’S RISING STAR, DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN, TO SHINE AT WINTER WORDS ON MAR 8 Debut Author Is Winner of The Story Prize and Finalist for US Literary Trifecta

February 28, 2012, Aspen, CO — On March 8, fiction phenom and debut author Daniyal Mueenuddin will return for an encore performance with the Aspen Writers’ Foundation (AWF). Awarded both The Story Prize and the Commonwealth Prize for 2009’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, Mueenuddin first wowed Aspen audiences during the 2011 Aspen Summer Words Literary Festival, where his was one of the most talked about events of the festival. Next month, fiction fans will get another chance to experience this rising star when he is featured at Winter Words 2012, the AWF’s 15th annual literary performance series. His much-anticipated reading, talk, Q&A, and book signing will be held on Thursday, March 8 at 5:30pm (doors at 5pm) at the Wheeler Opera House, followed by an Aspen Peak Author Salon for AWF members at the Nugget Gallery in downtown Aspen. Tickets and Author Salon packages, starting at $20, are available from Aspen Show Tickets at www.aspenshowtix.com and 970.920.5770. The Winter Words XV season features Tracy Kidder, Michael Chabon, Kathryn Stockett, and continues through April 9.

“We are pleased to have Daniyal back in Aspen for Winter Words,” said Lisa Consiglio, executive director of the Aspen Writers’ Foundation. “He was brilliant at the 2011 literary festival and we are delighted to continue to highlight the work of this fast-rising star.”

Author Bio Daniyal Mueenuddin is the kind of person who gives faith to all those who dream of a second act. He began writing in earnest at the age of 39, after first managing his father’s family farm in rural and practicing corporate law in New York City. Those were two pursuits that afforded him the ability to write poetry, one providing time and the other money. When his debut story collection In Other Rooms came out to thunderous applause and a deluge of honors, it was enough to turn even his seemingly hard-to-pronounce surname (MWEEN-U-DEAN) into a household name, at least among savvy fiction fans. Securing The Story Prize, being a finalist for the US literary trifecta (the Pulitzer, National Book Award, and LA Times Book Award), and earning comparisons to Chekhov and Faulkner, In Other Rooms quickly put this late bloomer on the map.

A map is perhaps an apt image for the global citizen that Mueenuddin is, one who lives between two countries, speaks several languages, and is married to a woman from another country and native language entirely. He was born on American soil in 1963 to a Pakistani father and an American mother, growing up on a farm in southern Punjab until the age of 13, before moving back to the U.S. for prep school and, later, advanced degrees at Dartmouth, Yale, and the . Mueenuddin credits his unique upbringing for the authentic voice of his stories, which are about Pakistan but are written in English for a Western audience.

“I'm always rolling back and forth along the spectrum, from Pakistani to American, depending on what I'm doing and where," he said in a Wall Street Journal interview the year his book was published. "I believe that this fluid identity is useful to me as a writer, because I'm always looking at myself and my surroundings from the outside."

This “write what you know” approach has paid off in his collection’s striking portrait of Pakistan’s underbelly. The eight linked stories of In Other Rooms describe the interwoven lives of an aging feudal landowner, his servants and managers, and his extended family–– industrialists who have lost touch with the land. Readers, few of whom are likely to be familiar with rural Pakistan first-hand (the book has been published in 16 languages, but not in Urdu, Pakistan’s official language), experience the complexities of the Pakistani feudal order as it is undermined and transformed over three decades.

Though his stories and his heritage point to Pakistan, he does not identify himself “as a Pakistani writer, but as a writer.” He wishes for his characters to have the same freedom from facile classification. Mueenuddin has acknowledged a desire to finesse cultural differences in his writing so that what remains are the human sides of a story: characters that earn the empathy of their readers. “The author’s duty is to present the characters in all their reality and humanity…to go far inside the characters so you are no longer in a position to judge.”

Mueenuddin’s stories have appeared in ; Granta; Zoetrope; The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by ; and the PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2010. He and his wife currently live on his family farm in South Punjab, where they grow sugarcane, cotton, mangoes, and vegetables.

The Details Winter Words events take place at 5:30 p.m. (doors at 5 p.m.). Tickets are $20/event, with deeper discounts available for AWF members, Aspen Institute Society of Fellows (SOF), students, and educators. The remainder of the Winter Words 2012 schedule is: Tracy Kidder, March 1; Daniyal Mueenuddin, March 8; Jonathan Wells, March 19; Kathryn Stockett, April 3; and Michael Chabon*, interviewed by Andrew Sean Greer, April 9. Visit aspenwriters.org for more details.

[*Note: Michael Chabon's previously scheduled event date has been changed to April 9.]

Author Salons Literary fans who want to get "up close and behind the ropes" at Winter Words may purchase tickets to the AWF's Author Salon series, sponsored in part by Aspen Peak magazine. Each Author Salon package includes an event ticket with reserved seating at Winter Words 2012, plus a pass to the private after-party held at a downtown art gallery. Tickets ($50) are available to AWF and Aspen Institute Society of Fellows (SOF) members through Aspen Show Tickets (aspenshowtix.com or 970.920.5770). Memberships and more information are available from the Aspen Writers' Foundation at 970.925.3122, ext. 2# or aspenwriters.org.

The Aspen Writers' Foundation was founded in Aspen in 1976 as a cutting edge poetry conference and literary magazine. Today the Aspen Writers' Foundation is one of the nation's leading literary centers and a stage for the world's most prominent authors. AWF programs employ literature as a tool for provoking thought, broadening perspectives, fostering connections, inspiring creativity, and giving voice. Since 2009, the AWF has partnered with the Aspen Institute, underscoring the highest humanistic ideals of Institute founder Walter Paepcke: to better understand human challenges by cultivating one's inner life through the exchange of words, stories, and ideas.

The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues. The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: seminars, young-leader fellowships around the globe, policy programs, and public conferences and events. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also has an international network of partners.

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