Souvankham Thammavongsa appears on our spring poetry list.Souvankham Thammavongsa on the 'great great courage' of Kayla Czaga's debut collection.Thammavongsa's fiction cuts to the core of the immigrant reality like a knife – however you pronounce it."
These stories are vessels of hope, of hurt, of rejection, of loss and of finding one's footing in a new and strange land. The emotional expanse chronicled in this collection is truly remarkable. Giller Prize jury citation: " How to Pronounce Knife is a stunning collection of stories that portray the immigrant experience in achingly beautiful prose. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2020. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's, Granta, The Paris Review and NOON. She has published four books of poetry, including 2019's Cluster. Souvankham Thammavongsa is a writer Toronto. Her stories have won an O. How to Pronounce Knifewon the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The $100,000 prize is the biggest prize in Canadian literature. Unsentimental yet tender, and fiercely alive, How to Pronounce Knife announces Souvankham Thammavongsa as one of the most striking voices of her generation. And in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize-shortlisted title story, a young girl's unconditional love for her father transcends the fickleness of language. As he watches his wife gradually drift into an affair with her boss, a school bus driver must grapple with what he's willing to give up in order to belong. When a 70-year-old woman begins a relationship with her much younger neighbour, her assumptions about the limits of love unravel. After a boxer loses his dream of becoming a championship fighter, he finds an unexpected chance at redemption while working at his sister's nail salon. Told with compassion, wry humour, and an unflinching eye for the often absurd realities of having to start your life over again, these stories honour characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world." A daughter becomes an unwilling accomplice in her mother's growing infatuation with country singer Randy Travis. In spare, intimate prose charged with emotional power and a sly wit, she paints an indelible portrait of watchful children, wounded men, and restless women caught between cultures, languages, and values. In her startling debut book of fiction, Souvankham Thammavongsa vividly captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees, illuminating their hopes, disappointments, love affairs, acts of defiance - and, above all, their pursuit of a place to belong. A housewife learning English from daytime soap operas. A mother who works nights alongside her daughter, harvesting worms. A father who packs furniture to move into homes he'll never afford. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A young man painting nails at the local salon.
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