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Talking with Boys

by Tayyba Kanwal

Connected stories across the Pakistani diaspora

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Connected stories across the Pakistani diaspora

Tayyba Kanwal’s linked tales connect Pakistani immigrant life in Houston with characters’ earlier experiences in Dubai and Lahore. The collection moves among community crises, labor and economic upheaval, political turmoil, and intimate conflicts, including a housekeeper’s effort to free fellow workers and an empty nester caught up in a jinxed bracelet. Irony, humor, and magic accompany characters pursuing love and survival while navigating betrayals and power struggles. Across its different places and generations, the book examines how patriarchal forces shape private choices and communal life.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in linked short fiction spanning Houston, Dubai, and Lahore.
  • Readers drawn to stories about the Pakistani diaspora, migration, and family or community pressures.
  • Readers interested in fiction exploring labor, survival, and gendered power.

Themes

Pakistani diasporaMigration and laborPatriarchy and powerSurvival and betrayal

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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.
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