Society & Class

Examinations of class, power, and the structures we live within.

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Moth Smoke

Set in Lahore during the sweltering summer of 1998, against the backdrop of Pakistan’s first nuclear tests, Moth Smoke follows Darashikoh “Daru” Shezad, a young banker whose carefully constructed life begins to collapse after he loses his job. Suddenly unable to maintain his place among the city’s privileged elite, Daru watches as his childhood friend Ozi returns from America with a wealthy lifestyle, a beautiful wife, and a future that seems increasingly out of reach. Daru becomes obsessed with Ozi’s wife, Mumtaz, a restless woman who secretly works as an investigative journalist, and their attraction draws him into a dangerous spiral of drugs, crime, and self-destruction. Told through shifting perspectives, courtroom testimonies, and the voices of those who know him, the novel gradually reveals the contradictions of its troubled protagonist. Beyond Daru’s personal downfall, Hamid paints a vivid portrait of a society divided by wealth, corruption, and inherited privilege. Like moths drawn irresistibly toward a flame, the characters pursue desires that may ultimately destroy them. Moth Smoke is a sharp, darkly humorous exploration of ambition, inequality, and moral collapse in a rapidly changing Pakistan.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Told in the second person, as though the reader is the protagonist, Mohsin Hamid’s inventive novel follows an unnamed boy’s extraordinary journey from rural poverty to immense wealth in a rapidly transforming South Asian city. Structured like a self-help manual, each chapter offers a rule for achieving financial success, from leaving the village to exploiting opportunities in the marketplace. As the protagonist moves into the city, he builds a business selling bottled water, turning a basic necessity into the foundation of his growing empire. Yet wealth brings neither complete security nor lasting fulfilment. Throughout his rise, he remains connected to a woman he first met as a teenager, whose own life follows a different but equally turbulent path. Against a backdrop of urbanisation, corruption, consumerism, and widening inequality, Hamid examines the costs of ambition in a society where almost everything has a price. Witty, romantic, and sharply observant, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is both a satire of self-help culture and a moving reflection on love, mortality, and the elusive meaning of success.

In the Shadows of Love

In the Shadows of Love

In the Shadows of Love follows Mona Ahmed, a wealthy woman living in Lahore whose seemingly perfect life conceals years of heartbreak and unresolved secrets. Married to successful businessman Bilal, she enjoys financial comfort, a beautiful home, and a respected position in high society. Yet beneath this privileged exterior, Mona struggles with memories of a lost love and the emotional consequences of a past affair that continues to affect her marriage and family. To protect her reputation, Mona maintains the appearance of a devoted wife, hosting glamorous gatherings and fulfilling the expectations of Lahore’s elite social circles. Her carefully controlled life begins to unravel when an unexpected message brings the past back into the present. As buried secrets threaten to emerge, Mona must confront the consequences of her choices and the fragile foundations of her marriage. Set against the contrasting worlds of wealth, privilege, and social pressure in contemporary Pakistan, Awais Khan’s novel explores love, betrayal, forgiveness, and the price of maintaining appearances. It also examines how rigid social expectations can trap people in lives that look perfect from the outside but conceal profound emotional suffering.

Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)

Night of the Golden Butterfly (The Islam Quintet)

Moving between Lahore, London, Paris, and Beijing, Tariq Ali’s Night of the Golden Butterfly explores friendship, love, political disillusionment, and the changing identity of Pakistan. The story follows Dara, a writer living in London, who is asked by his old friend Mohammed Aflatun—nicknamed Plato, an eccentric and gifted painter—to write the story of his life. As Dara reconnects with people from his past, old romances and long-buried memories resurface, revealing the complicated relationships that bind their lives together. Alongside this contemporary narrative, the novel reaches back into Chinese-Muslim history through the family of Jindie, Dara’s first love. Blending satire, personal recollection, and historical storytelling, Ali examines the tensions between East and West, the effects of political power and religious fundamentalism, and the struggles of a society confronting its own contradictions. The novel is the fifth and final volume of The Islam Quintet.

This is Where the Serpent Lives

This is Where the Serpent Lives

Daniyal Mueenuddin

Spanning six decades, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is an expansive portrait of contemporary Pakistan, where wealth, privilege and inherited social hierarchies shape the destinies of generations. At its centre is Yazid, an orphan who rises from poverty on the streets of Rawalpindi to become a trusted chauffeur in the household of a powerful landowning family. Around him, the lives of aristocrats, servants, ambitious farmers and young lovers intersect across Pakistan’s chaotic cities and feudal countryside. Saqib, the son of a poor gardener, receives an opportunity to manage a new agricultural enterprise, but his determination to improve his position leads him into dangerous territory. Meanwhile, rivalries, romantic entanglements and political corruption threaten the fragile order maintained by the wealthy elite. Through a richly interconnected cast of characters, Mueenuddin examines the price of ambition and the ways class, money and power perpetuate inequality. The novel offers an intimate, unsparing view of a society caught between changing aspirations and deeply entrenched traditions.

About this theme

Books: 5
Countries: 54

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

Dominican Republic