"The Exile, however disillusioned by his people, is never able to escape his longing for them. How terribly strange it all is."

Downfall by Degrees takes the reader on a journey that explores the nature of alienation and exile. The drawing rooms of Lahore's high society, the ghettos of Britain, an estate in the Pakistanin countryside, the bedroom of a beautiful woman - these are the setings for these stories of love and identity, longing and becoming, exile and return - stories that probe with masterful precision and exquisite balance the condition of modern man at odds against himself.

Abdullah Hussein's profile page

Abdullan Hussein was born in 1931 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and now makes his home in London, where he moved in the 1960's with his wife. His short stories and novels have received wide critical acclaim in Pakistan. His novel Udaas Naslain (1963) won him his country's highest literary prize, the Adamjee Award, and been translated into Bengali, Punjabi, and Chinese. His other novels include Baagh and The Immigrants, the latter in English. A collection of short stories, Night, has also appeared in English translation. Abdullah Hussein, writes his translator, is truly a towering figure in the world of Urdu fiction, bringing to his works the shattered image of the human psyche, oppressed by guilt and exile.

Muhammad Umar Memon has also translated Hussein's previous collection Night. He is professor at the University of Wisconsin.