K.K. Harouni

This character appears as a central character in only one story in the collection: appropriately enough, the story that gives the collection its name (“In Other Rooms, Other Wonders”). Nevertheless, he is the central and most significant character in the entire book, in that every other story, and every protagonist in those stories, has a connection of one kind or another, to one degree or another, with him. Several main characters work for him (i.e. Nawabdin, Rafik), while others are connected to those who work for him (i.e. Saleema). Several other characters are related to him (i.e. Sohail in “Our Lady of Paris,” who is a son of his cousin), while others define their lives by their relationships to him (i.e. Husna, “In Other Rooms…”). Finally, other characters have distant, peripheral relationships with him through their relationships with people who have closer...