Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

Centre A Speaker Series 2022: Souvankham Thammavongsa

Centre A Speaker Series 2022: Souvankham Thammavongsa

Saturday, October 15, 2022, 1 – 2 pm PDT

We will conclude our 2022 Speaker Series, with an online reading and Q&A session with award-winning author Souvankham Thammavongsa! 

Register for the talk HERE.

Find out more about the Centre A Speaker Series 2022 HERE.

During the talk, Thammavongsa will discuss her book HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE and perform a short reading of her book. After the reading, attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions about the book during the Q&A. Attendees are encouraged (but not required) to read HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE prior to the talk.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE, winner of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN America Open Book Award, out now with Little, Brown (U.S.), McClelland & Stewart (Canada), and Bloomsbury (U.K.), available in French, with foreign rights sold in China, Korea, Poland, and Turkey. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, and NOON. She has also written book reviews for The New York Times, and edited the anthologies Best Canadian Poetry (2021) and The Griffin Poetry Prize (2021). She is known for her PowerPoint videos on Zoom about writing, most recently one titled “I Am Not That Interesting.” Currently, she is working on her first novel. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, and was raised, and educated at public schools, in Toronto.

Photo Credit: Steph Martyniuk

Centre A would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council for supporting the Centre A Speaker Series.


Accessibility: The gallery is wheelchair and walker accessible. If you have specific accessibility needs, please contact us at (604) 683-8326 or [email protected].

Centre A is situated on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We honour, respect, and give thanks to our hosts.