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How to Pronounce Knife  By  cover art

How to Pronounce Knife

By: Souvankham Thammavongsa
Narrated by: James Tang, Kulap Vilaysack
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Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, read by James Tang and Kulap Vilaysack.

Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

An ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands, a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night, a country-music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy and a young girl's love for her father transcends language.

In this stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong.

©2022 Souvankham Thammavongsa (P)2022 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Every once in a while, you come across a book with writing so breath-taking 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)

"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)

"Powerhouses of feeling and depth." (Mary Gaitskill)

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