Harare Review of Books

192 pages.

First published in 2020.

Finished reading on 30 Nov 2020.

Genre: Fiction anthology.

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. 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.

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. A failed boxer discovers what it truly means to be a champion when he starts painting nails at his sister’s salon. A young woman tries to discern the invisible but immutable social hierarchies at a chicken processing plant. A mother coaches her daughter in the challenging art of worm harvesting.

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 very thoughtful collection of stories about the lives of Lao immigrants — not a group I had ever read about before. Immigrant stories can seem, to an outsider, to be the same story told over and over again; but the more exposure one has to them, the more one sees, and learns. This was true, for me, of this anthology.

Enjoyed all of the stories, the lives portrayed, but Randy Travis made my eyes well up. Really excellent writing, and a very even anthology. Recommended.

Rated: 7/10.