Book

How to Pronounce Knife 2019

By Souvankham Thammavongsa

  • Fiction, short stories (single author), English literature, Immigrants, Fiction

"In her 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. 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. Uncannily and intimately observed, written with prose of exceptional precision, the stories in How to Pronounce Knife speak of modern location and dislocation, revealing lives lived in the embrace of isolation and severed history - but not without joy, humour, resilience, and constant wonder at the workings of the world."--Provided by publisher.

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Character

Contemporary, spare, classical in form and prestige.

  • contemporarynostalgic
  • sparerichly built
  • classical in formformally daring
  • unpretentiousprestige
  • earnestironic

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