Talking with Boys

In a collection of linked tales filled with irony, humor, and magic, Talking with Boys introduces an unforgettable cast of characters in the Pakistani diaspora in Houston navigating crises of their own making and beyond their control.

Via generations and geographies, the stories expand from Houston into tales from the characters’ pasts in Dubai and Lahore. A community of Pakistani immigrants distract ICE with unlikely bait. A housekeeper in a Dubai mansion plots to liberate her fellow indentured workers. In Lahore, an empty nester finds herself bound by more than a jinxed bracelet. Throughout, Tayyba Kanwal’s remarkable characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals to pursue love, plot for survival, and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders.

Tayyba Kanwal is a Pakistani-American writer from Houston, TX. Her work appears in journals such as Witness, Gulf Coast, and Meridian. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston where she was an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow. Her awards include the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction, Black Lawrence Press 2023 Immigrant Writing Prize, shortlisted for C&R Press’ 2023 Fiction Award and runner-up in Witness Magazine’s 2022 Literary Award. She serves as Director of Workshops at Inprint, Associate Fiction Editor at Cutleaf Journal, and Assistant Fiction Editor at Conjunctions.