![]() How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection about the experience of being a Lao immigrant in Canada (mostly). There is not much about the country I was visiting but I discovered a whole new universe. However, she is of Lao origin and although she was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, she was raised and lives in Toronto, Canada. I read this book during my trip to Thailand because the author was born there. In a taut, visceral prose style that establishes her as one of the most striking and assured voices of her generation, Thammavongsa interrogates what it means to make a living, to work, and to create meaning. A mother coaches her daughter in the challenging art of worm harvesting. A young woman tries to discern the invisible but immutable social hierarchies at a chicken processing plant. ![]() A failed boxer discovers what it truly means to be a champion when he starts painting nails at his sister's salon. ![]() The stories that make up How to Pronounce Knife focus on characters struggling to find their bearings in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values. Thammavongsa is a master at homing in on moments like this - moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right up against the limits of language. ![]() In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. ![]() Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780316422130. ![]()
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