56. Souvankham Thammavongsa in Conversation

Souvankham Thammavongsa’s debut collection, How to Pronounce Knife, exploded onto the literary scene—winning her the Giller Prize and Trillium Book Award, and bringing the multifaceted stories of Laotian refugees into the spotlight. Her much anticipated first novel unfolds over a single day in the life of a nail salon owner, painting a deeply intimate portrait of the immigrant experience, and offers a penetrating exploration of class, labour, and the inseparable alienation and violence that results. Thammavongsa speaks about Pick A Colour, and telling the nuanced stories of immigrants with solidarity and grace, with Doretta Lau.

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Doretta Lau

DORETTA LAU started watching horror movies at age nine and sketch comedy at eleven, which was probably why she completed an MFA in Writing at Columbia University. She is the author of the short story collection How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? and a forthcoming novel, We Are Underlings (Anansi 2026), about a dysfunctional workplace struggling to open a theme park that celebrates death.

Souvankham Thammavongsa

SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA is the author of four poetry books and the short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife, winner of the 2020 Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award. Her stories have won an O. Henry Prize and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Granta. Pick a Colour is her first novel.