How to Pronounce Knife

In these stripped-down stories, the minute observations are just as significant as the broader strokes the writer uses to depict the lives of refugees, people at the margins. Told mostly from the perspective of a Laotian adolescent, the characters are each trying to understand the steps they must take to fit into their new barricaded lives. In spite of the claustrophobia that encloses the characters, the stories are funny and tender. 

I’ve always been a big reader of short stories (I have four children and can pretty much tune them out for a short story, whereas reading a novel requires me to actually go into hiding.) These stunning stories took me out of place and time to the lives of many other people, all of them dislocated in the world. Souvankham explores the immigrant experience so artfully, and I love how she titles these works—bringing so much extra to the story, the way that artwork in a gallery is enhanced for me by the title on the wall.