The 2020 jury panel was comprised of Canadian nonfiction writer and past Canada Reads winner Mark Sakamoto, Canadian novelists Eden Robinson, David Chariandy and Tom Rachman, as well as British critic Claire Armitstead. Thirty-six years ago, I went to school and I pronounced the word 'knife' wrong, and I didn't get a prize. your brilliance is why this means so much,' said Thammavongsa in her acceptance speech. I don't envy you, the decision must have been difficult and I'm so thankful to my fellow nominees.

These stories are vessels of hope, of hurt, of rejection, of loss and of finding one's footing in a new and strange land. Thammavongsa's fiction cuts to the core of the immigrant reality like a knife - however you pronounce it,' the jury said in a statement. 'The emotional expanse chronicled in this collection is truly remarkable. The jury described How to Pronounce Knife as a 'stunning collection of stories that portray the immigrant experience in achingly beautiful prose.' They're all very different but I also wanted them to orbit around each other, to remind each other.'ĭuration 2:59 Souvankham Thammavongsa, Giller Prize winner for her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, talks about growing up and learning English in ESL classes - where there was no prize for mispronouncing the word 'knife.' 'I did think a lot about family, love, work and laughter as things that the stories would deal with. And also we can be ungrateful and there should be room for that. We're also fun and ferocious and hilarious. And rightly so they are. But I feel like that image is very narrow about who we really are. 'I knew that whenever we encounter stories of immigrants and refugees, they are always sad and tragic. I wanted to write about an immigrant child in a different way than we often encounter them in literature. I decided to try fiction and see how everything that I learned with poetry would translate into fiction,' Thammavongsa told CBC Books. Nobody was waiting for the fiction - I wanted to surprise people. Souvankham Thammavongsa's stories explore the diversity of the immigrant experience CBC Books named Thammavongsa a 2020 writer to watch. How to Pronounce Knife, her first work of fiction, is a collection of idiosyncratic and diverse stories that explores the tragedy and humour of the daily lives of immigrants. She has published four books of poetry, including 2019's Cluster.

Henry Award and appeared in Harper's, Granta, The Paris Review and Noon. She was born in the (Lao) Nong Khai refugee camp in Thailand and was raised and educated in Toronto.

Thammavongsa is a Toronto writer and poet.

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