“When I was a child, I’d amble through the crammed alleys of my grandparents’ village, dust on my feet, stories in the air. Since then, I’ve lived in three countries, learned the rhythm of cities, the hush of in-betweens. But I always returned to Lahore-the city that cradles chaos and love like a ghazal-unruly, tender, and all mine—where the book found its ending and, after years of shadows, I found my beginning again.”
— Kanza Javed
We’re thrilled to celebrate the upcoming release of What Remains After the Fire, the second book by Kanza Javed, a 2011 alumna of the Pakistan-U.S. Student Leaders Exchange Program. Set to hit stores this September, the novel is a lyrical and deeply personal exploration of place, memory, and identity woven from the many worlds Kanza has lived in and the stories she carries from each.
Kanza holds an MFA in Fiction from West Virginia University, where she was honored with the Rebecca Mason Perry Award. She is a two-time recipient of U.S. State Department research scholarships, which took her to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Arizona State University.
Her debut novel, Ashes, Wine and Dust, was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and became a national bestseller in South Asia. Her short fiction has appeared in acclaimed literary journals such as American Literary Review, The Punch Magazine, Salamander, Greensboro Review, and The Malahat Review. She has also been recognized with the Reynolds Price Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the New Millennium Writing Award, Salamander Short Fiction Award, and Robert Watson Literary Prize.
Kanza’s voice continues to shape the literary landscape both in Pakistan and abroad. Her work has been featured in The Commonwealth Journal, Narrating Pakistan the country’s first literary anthology and In the New Century: An Anthology of Pakistani Literature published by Oxford University Press.
Congratulations to Kanza on this powerful new milestone! We can’t wait for readers to experience the beauty, grit, and heart of What Remains After the Fire.
