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A review by ladybookamore
How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
4.0
I thank Bloomsbury India for giving me an opportunity to review such a masterful work of short fiction.
It is sheer coincidence that I came across this book in a month which experienced one of the worst instances of human migration 73 years ago. Wait, didn't such a thing happen this year too? Oh, yes. Millions of migrant labourers had to walk thousands of miles with their families, so that they could return to their home in a time when a pandemic had the struck the globe. If the former was an example of the imperialist cruelty, the latter is an example of incompetence and difference of a government towards its own peoples.
Souvankham Thammavongsa's How to Pronounce Knife is a wonderful collection of short stories, each of which explores the myriad hues of ordinary life. The beauty of the anthology lies in its humble selection of themes, inspired from everyday life, struggles, hardships, little joys and successes, and so on. The only connection to all of these is that all the characters that populate the book have migrated to a "better place". Previously, I had mentioned in one of my recent Instagram stories that some of the short stories in this collection hit your hard, while others miss the mark. From now on, I will not make in judgements of a book beforehand, anymore. How to Pronounce Knife handles topics of financial crisis, the eternal quest for (true) love, unemployment, despair, loss, etc so subtly, that you will be shaken from within by an emotion which lies between feeling and understanding. Such is the strength of the short stories which throw light on ordinary lives devoid of uniqueness, but are universal in their entirety.
I cannot say anything more here. How to Pronounce Knife is one of the 2020 books I highly recommend you to read soon! I convey my best wishes to the author for her future endeavours.
It is sheer coincidence that I came across this book in a month which experienced one of the worst instances of human migration 73 years ago. Wait, didn't such a thing happen this year too? Oh, yes. Millions of migrant labourers had to walk thousands of miles with their families, so that they could return to their home in a time when a pandemic had the struck the globe. If the former was an example of the imperialist cruelty, the latter is an example of incompetence and difference of a government towards its own peoples.
Souvankham Thammavongsa's How to Pronounce Knife is a wonderful collection of short stories, each of which explores the myriad hues of ordinary life. The beauty of the anthology lies in its humble selection of themes, inspired from everyday life, struggles, hardships, little joys and successes, and so on. The only connection to all of these is that all the characters that populate the book have migrated to a "better place". Previously, I had mentioned in one of my recent Instagram stories that some of the short stories in this collection hit your hard, while others miss the mark. From now on, I will not make in judgements of a book beforehand, anymore. How to Pronounce Knife handles topics of financial crisis, the eternal quest for (true) love, unemployment, despair, loss, etc so subtly, that you will be shaken from within by an emotion which lies between feeling and understanding. Such is the strength of the short stories which throw light on ordinary lives devoid of uniqueness, but are universal in their entirety.
I cannot say anything more here. How to Pronounce Knife is one of the 2020 books I highly recommend you to read soon! I convey my best wishes to the author for her future endeavours.