Every once in a while, you come across a book with writing so breathtaking that you take note of the author so you can read everything they ever write in the future. How to Pronounce Knife, by Souvankham Thammavongsa is one of those books

Elle

Spellbinding ... A perfect marriage of style and refreshing, surprising substance. Like her characters, Thammavongsa possesses x-ray vision for teetering power structures and those who sit precariously at the top of them. But her writing goes beyond this. It actively, though quietly, works against the invisibility or erasure of migrants living and trying to make a living in the margins.

i

Impressive ... Thammavongsa's spare, rigorous stories are preoccupied with themes of alienation and dislocation, her characters burdened by the sense of existing unseen ... Thammavongsa's gift for the gently absurd means the stories never feel dour or predictable ... It is when the characters' sense of alienation follows them home, into the private space of the family, that Thammavongsa's stories most wrench the heart

New York Times Book Review

The stories are slender, spare, and slide between your ribs like a super-sharp blade, fast and soundless, before you realize what's happening

Vanity Fair

[Souvankham Thammavongsa's] poignant, affecting debut collection conversationally captures the everyday lives of immigrants and refugees who have moved to the city in the hope of better lives

Daily Mail

In this touching debut, the Thailand-born, Toronto-raised author captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city with universal hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and a desire to belong ... stand-out

Cosmopolitan