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How to Pronounce Knife cover

How to Pronounce Knife

Souvankham Thammavongsa

1

award won

12

score

#534 of 8,085 books · #289 in Fiction

Won the Giller Prize (2020). Also shortlisted or longlisted for 1 other award.

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.

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Publisher
Back Bay Books
ISBN-13
9780316422123
Genre
Fiction
Topics
Immigrant and refugee lifeDisplacement and belongingFamily relationships

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