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Talking with Boys

Price range: $11.99 through $17.95

ISBN: 9781625571793
Catalog: Black Lawrence Press
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Categories E-Books, Fiction, Immigrant Writing Series, Short Stories

Talking with Boys

Tayyba Kanwal

Publication Date: January 6, 2026

Description

Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series“Author/editor Tayyba Kanwal’s stellar Talking with Boys crisscrosses Houston, Dubai, and Lahore (and nearby surrounds) over seven decades in 15 intriguingly linked stories…Arrival to a destination, Kanwal posits, offers no guarantee–some might choose to return home, others might forcibly be removed. Welcome can never be expected. Writing in straightforward prose infused with meticulous insight, Kanwal presents notable characters commanding attention and inspiring lingering empathy.”

–Shelf Awareness, STARRED REVIEW

“Kanwal’s prose combines Sandra Cisnero’s lyricality with Jhumpa Lahiri’s profound cultural understanding, but with a voice that is uniquely her own. Each story captures the Pakistani and Pakistani American experience in a way that will linger with the reader long after… In the end, Kanwal leaves us with a striking truth: freedom lies in the courage to keep moving forward.”

–Southern Review of Books

“Magical, intricate and disarming…each story is multifaceted and complex, and reading even just one is a transformative experience.”

–Ms. Magazine

“Talking With Boys is an international, individual yet interconnected collection of short stories…orchestrated and built beautifully to create a deliberate reading experience. Kanwal’s writing is both deeply personal and impressively expansive.”

–Yakima Herald-Republic

A community of Pakistani immigrants in Houston 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 the jinxed bracelet her adult son has gifted her. Talking with Boys is a collection of linked stories filled with irony, humor, and magic. Spanning generations and continents—from Lahore to Dubai to Houston—these characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals. Amid crises both imposed and self-inflicted, the people in these stories pursue love, plot for survival and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders.

Praise

Talking with Boys is an astonishing story collection that spans decades and is set in various locales, including Houston, Lahore, and Dubai. With deep insight and humor, Tayyba Kanwal explores the diverse range of the Pakistani and Pakistani American experience, as well as the complexities of a Muslim identity. Readers are introduced to a big cast of rich and memorable characters, many of whom are navigating new beginnings and places. Whether writing about family dynamics, generational conflicts, immigration, socioeconomic class, and notions of home and belonging, among other themes, Kanwal’s stories speak to the human condition with breathtaking power. A remarkable debut.

– Ghassan Zeineddine, author of Dearborn

An intimate collection of stories, Talking with Boys spans time and place while depicting a group of souls who are determined, hilarious, and complex. Kanwal knows this world better than anyone, which is why the collection is consistently full of provocation and delight. This book is the introduction of an exciting new literary voice that readers will be sure to enjoy.

– Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The American Daughters

There is something wonderfully disarming about all the people in these stories. Kanwal narrates their lives in sentences that are poignant, their plans, faults and longing always at the center, their utter humanness laid out on the pages.

– Farah Ali, author of The River, The Town

Talking with Boys is a magical and riveting collection that will make you reassess what you know about the three very different worlds in which the stories are set. Kanwal’s agile, multifaceted characters are at once hilarious and heartbreaking. They’ll shock you and infuriate you and amaze you. They’ll linger in your imagination long after you’ve turned the last page.

– Chitra Divakaruni, American Book Award-winning author of Independence and Mistress of Spices

About the Author

© Jamey Stillings

Tayyba Kanwal

Tayyba Kanwal is a Pakistani-American writer from Houston, TX. Her award-winning work has appeared 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, and an MS from the University of Oregon. With extensive experience in technology consulting, she now serves as Director of Workshops & Community Engagement at Inprint, Houston’s premier literary arts organization, Associate Fiction Editor at Cutleaf Journal, and Senior Editor at Conjunctions.

Visit Author Page

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Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series"Author/editor Tayyba Kanwal's stellar Talking with Boys crisscrosses Houston, Dubai, and Lahore (and nearby surrounds) over seven decades in 15 intriguingly linked stories...Arrival to a destination, Kanwal posits, offers no guarantee--some might choose to return home, others might forcibly be removed. Welcome can never be expected. Writing in straightforward prose infused with meticulous insight, Kanwal presents notable characters commanding attention and inspiring lingering empathy."


--Shelf Awareness, STARRED REVIEW


"Kanwal’s prose combines Sandra Cisnero’s lyricality with Jhumpa Lahiri’s profound cultural understanding, but with a voice that is uniquely her own. Each story captures the Pakistani and Pakistani American experience in a way that will linger with the reader long after... In the end, Kanwal leaves us with a striking truth: freedom lies in the courage to keep moving forward."


--Southern Review of Books


"Magical, intricate and disarming...each story is multifaceted and complex, and reading even just one is a transformative experience."


--Ms. Magazine


"Talking With Boys is an international, individual yet interconnected collection of short stories…orchestrated and built beautifully to create a deliberate reading experience. Kanwal’s writing is both deeply personal and impressively expansive."


--Yakima Herald-Republic

A community of Pakistani immigrants in Houston 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 the jinxed bracelet her adult son has gifted her. Talking with Boys is a collection of linked stories filled with irony, humor, and magic. Spanning generations and continents—from Lahore to Dubai to Houston—these characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals. Amid crises both imposed and self-inflicted, the people in these stories pursue love, plot for survival and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders."
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