Things She Could Never Have

These understated, beautiful, and disturbing stories depict the lives of Pakistanis--privileged or poor, gay or straight, men or women--painting the life of a nation deeply troubled. "Clean" takes us into the mind of an abused maidservant's boy who gets seduced into the role of a suicide bomber. In "Pray," a group of privileged young men and women, some of them home from abroad, gallivant through the streets of Karachi, until two of them go to a mosque, and meet a terrible fate. "Things She Could Never Have" is a love story about two young trans women living in Karachi. "Home" follows one of them to her place of birth in a small village in the Punjab.

"Tehmina Khan’s Things She Could Never Have is a riveting window into the lives of modern Pakistanis–both here in Toronto and in Karachi."

- She Does the City

"Through her short stories, Khan takes us into the complexities of the lives of modern Pakistanis, writing through lenses of class, race, gender, and sexuality."

- World Literature Today

“The reason I wanted more is because of what Khan does well: offering a kaleidoscopic
view of those so often rendered invisible.”

- The Globe and Mail