What Remains After a Fire by Kanza Javed; 2025. Hardcover.

In eight stories, Kanza Javed unspools the lives of characters desperately trying to forge a path for themselves on the margins of society. An addict teaches his young son to shoot feral dogs on the streets of Lahore. A Christian nurse gets drawn into a plan to trap the ghost of her patient’s former lover. A Pakistani student in a small Appalachian town grapples with a startling act of violence that shatters her illusions of safety and freedom. A lonely wife becomes increasingly obsessed with a cloth worry doll left behind by a previous tenant.

These stories reach across divides of class, gender, and religion as Javed examines questions of identity and agency, belonging and loss. What Remains After a Fire is a portrayal of fiercely resilient characters who desire more than what their circumstances can offer them—and what these desires ultimately cost them.