Souvankham Thammavongsa won the $77,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary award, on Monday, for her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife, CBC News reports.
Thammavongsa’s book is her first work of fiction; she has previously written four collections of poetry. A reviewer for Kirkus called her short story collection, which focuses on the experiences of Lao people in North America, “moving, strange, and occasionally piercing.”
Thammavongsa, who was born in a Lao refugee camp in Thailand, referenced her early childhood in Toronto while accepting the award.
“Thirty-six years ago I went to school, and I pronounced the word knife wrong, and I didn't get a prize,” she told the audience at the virtual ceremony. “But tonight there is one.”
The prize jury called Thammavongsa’s stories “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 wrote.
The Giller Prize was first awarded in 1994, and was renamed in 2005 to honor its new sponsor, the Canadian bank Scotiabank. Past winners have included Margaret Atwood for Alias Grace, Rohinton Mistry for A Fine Balance, and Alice Munro for The Love of a Good Woman and Runaway.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
