Souvankham Thammavongsa

Souvankham Thammavongsa is a Laotian-Canadian poet and short story writer. In 2019, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story, "Slingshot", which was published in Harper's Magazine,^[1] and in 2020 her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife won the Giller Prize.^[2]

Souvankham Thammavongsa
Born	1978 Nong Khai, Thailand
Occupation	writer
Nationality	Canadian
Period	2000s–present
Notable works	Small Arguments, Found, Light, How to Pronounce Knife, Slingshot

Life and Career

Thammavongsa was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand in 1978.^[3] She and her parents were sponsored by a family in Canada when she was one year old.^[4] She was raised and educated in Toronto, Ontario.^[5]

Thammavongsa studied at the University of Toronto, majoring in English.^[6] She has never taken an MFA course, and says that she has learned to write by reading. Some of her favorite authors are Alice Munro, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, and Tennessee Williams.^[7]

Her first book, Small Arguments, won a ReLit Award in 2004.^[8] Her second book, Found, was made into a short film by Paramita Nath.^[9] Her third book, Light, won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry in 2014.^[10] Her short story "How to Pronounce Knife" was a finalist for the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize out of 4,000 entries.^[11] In 2016, two of her stories, "Mani Pedi" and "Paris," were in contention for the Journey Prize.^[12]

Her first short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife, was published in 2020.^[13] Australian literary critic Kerryn Goldsworthy wrote of the stories that "their language is economical but they are emotional timebombs."^[14] In the book, she draws upon her childhood as the daughter of Laotian immigrants to tell fourteen stories, each an exploration of foreignness and belonging.^[15] The book was a candidate for the Giller Prize,^[16] and won the award on November 9, 2020. In 2021, the book was awarded the $20,000 (Canadian) Trillium Book Award,^[17] and was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2021.^[18]

Thammavongsa was a judge for the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize.^[19] She was guest editor for 2021 Best Canadian Poetry (Biblioasis) and in 2024 was the judge for the inaugural Montreal Fiction Prize.^[20][21]

Bibliography

Poetry collections

• Small Arguments (Pedlar Press, 2003)
• Found (Pedlar Press, 2007)
• Light (Pedlar Press, 2013)
• Cluster (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House, 2019)^[a]

Short story collections

• How to Pronounce Knife (2020). Penguin.

Short fiction

Year	Title[b]	First published	Reprinted/collected	Notes
2015	"Ewwrrrkk"	Joyland Magazine
	"Mani Pedi"	The Puritan
2017	How to Pronounce Knife	Granta, #141 (Special Canada)	—	pp 168 – 173, with a photo of her and her family 1983
2021	"Good-looking"	Thammavongsa, Souvankham (March 1, 2021). "Good-looking". The New Yorker. 97 (2): 54–56.
2022	"Trash"	The New Yorker
2024	"Bozo"	The New Yorker

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Bibliography notes

1. Briefly mentioned at "20 works of Canadian poetry to check out in spring 2019". CBC Books, January 25, 2019.
2. Short stories unless otherwise noted.