All posts tagged: lao writer

Review: How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

Review by Soudary Kittivong-Greenbaum This isn’t for you This is for the lady in the back The kid that’s late to class The dad that’s invisible, dreams cast aside The lost-ambition Grandma, no-purpose Aunty And it’s all for you too. Soudary Kittivong-Greenbaum Written through the eyes of a child (more than once), a grown woman longing for her grown child, a 20-something single factory worker, a woman in her 70s, a husband completely in denial of his wife’s escapades, a teen daughter of a farmworker, each character in Souvankham Thammavongsa’s new title, How to Pronounce Knife is a glimpse into the lives of a Lao refugee or immigrant, literally and figuratively trying to make it in the world. They are in the midst, often of an identity juncture, trying fit in. They are living the mundane, the everyday. But inside their minds, and their hearts, they are trying to find meaning, to figure a place in their world. What it does differently than other works of art centered on the refugee and Lao refugee character …