diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index f0d3f369..9ae255b8 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -4,7 +4,9 @@ Priority: extra
 Maintainer: Carl Worth <cworth@debian.org>
 Uploaders: Jameson Graef Rollins <jrollins@finestructure.net>, martin f. krafft <madduck@debian.org>, 
 	   David Bremner <bremner@debian.org>
-Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7.0.50~), pkg-config, libxapian-dev, libgmime-2.4-dev, libtalloc-dev, libz-dev, emacs (>= 23~)
+Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7.0.50~), pkg-config, libxapian-dev, 
+ libgmime-2.4-dev, libtalloc-dev, libz-dev, emacs (>= 23~), 
+ python-all (>= 2.6.6-3~)
 Standards-Version: 3.9.1.0
 Homepage: http://notmuchmail.org/
 Vcs-Git: git://notmuchmail.org/git/notmuch
@@ -50,3 +52,16 @@ Description: thread-based email index, search and tagging (development)
  .
  This package provides the necessary development libraries and header
  files to allow you to develop new software using libnotmuch.
+
+Package: python-notmuch
+Architecture: all
+Section: python
+Depends: ${misc:Depends}, ${python:Depends}, libnotmuch1
+Description: python interface to the notmuch mail search and index library
+ Notmuch is a system for indexing, searching, reading, and tagging
+ large collections of email messages in maildir or mh format. It uses
+ the Xapian library to provide fast, full-text search with a very
+ convenient search syntax.
+ .
+ This package provides a Python interface to the notmuch
+ functionality, directly interfacing with a shared notmuch library.
diff --git a/debian/python-notmuch.install b/debian/python-notmuch.install
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..607c0659
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/python-notmuch.install
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+usr/lib/python*
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index f7be2ca9..9ac190ea 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -3,16 +3,26 @@
 VERSION=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -n 's/^Version:\([^-]*\)/\1/p')
 
 %:
-	dh $@
+	dh --with python2 $@
 
 override_dh_auto_configure:
 	cp version debian/version.pre-build
 	echo $(VERSION) > version
 	dh_auto_configure -- --emacslispdir=/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/notmuch
 
+override_dh_auto_build:
+	dh_auto_build
+	dh_auto_build --sourcedirectory bindings/python
+
 override_dh_auto_clean:
 	-mv debian/version.pre-build version
 	dh_auto_clean
+	dh_auto_clean --sourcedirectory bindings/python
+
+override_dh_auto_install:
+	dh_auto_install
+	dh_auto_install --sourcedirectory bindings/python
+
 override_dh_installdocs:
 	dh_installdocs
 	install -m644 vim/README debian/notmuch/usr/share/doc/notmuch/README.vim