Souvankham Thammavongsa – författare

WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE 2025A TLS AND TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEARFrom Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class.'I live in a world of Susans. I got name tags for everyone who works at this nail salon, and on every one is printed the name "Susan".'‘One of the greatest novels I have ever read’ RITA BULWINKELL‘Wickedly funny and moving’ AVNI DOSHI‘A knockout: every punch lands’ ELEANOR CATTONNing is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities – as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances – will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.'Hauntingly good' ED PARK‘Subverts the comforting mundane’ PITCHAYA SUDBANTHAD‘A master over the sentence’ DAISY JOHNSONReader Reviews:'Unlike anything I've read before, a talent to watch' (5-star review)'The prose was liquid gold' (5-star review)'I was devastated to finish it so soon' (5-star review)

WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE‘Spellbinding’ i‘Breathtaking’ Elle‘Powerhouses of feeling and depth’ Mary Gaitskill‘Sharp and vital’ Daisy Johnson'Excellent' Margaret Atwood on TwitterAn ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands; a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night; a country music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy; and a young girl's love for her father transcends language. In this stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong.'There is not a moment off in these affecting stories' Sheila Heti

WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE 2025A TLS AND TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEARFrom Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labor, and class.'I live in a world of Susans. I got name tags for everyone who works at this nail salon, and on every one is printed the name "Susan".'‘One of the greatest novels I have ever read’ RITA BULWINKELL‘Wickedly funny and moving’ AVNI DOSHI‘A knockout: every punch lands’ ELEANOR CATTONNing is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound depth. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complicated power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities – as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances – will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.Told over a single day with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.'Hauntingly good' ED PARK‘Subverts the comforting mundane’ PITCHAYA SUDBANTHAD‘A master over the sentence’ DAISY JOHNSONReader Reviews:'Unlike anything I've read before, a talent to watch' (5-star review)'The prose was liquid gold' (5-star review)'I was devastated to finish it so soon' (5-star review)

“This is a book,” writes guest editor Souvankham Thammavongsa, “about what I saw and read and loved, and want you to see and read and love.” Selected from work published by Canadian poets in magazines and journals in 2020, Best Canadian Poetry 2021 gathers the poems Thammavongsa loved most over a year’s worth of reading, and draws together voices that “got in and out quickly, that said unusual things, that were clear, spare, and plain, that made [her] laugh out loud … the voices that barely ever survive to make it onto the page.” From new work by Canadian icons to thrilling emerging talents, this year’s anthology offers fifty poems for you to fall in love with as well.Featuring:Margaret AtwoodKen BabstockManahil BandukwalaCourtney Bates-HardyRoxanna BennettRonna BloomLouise CarsonKate CayleyKitty CheungDani CoutureKayla CzagaŠari DaleUnnati DesaiTina DoAndrew DuBoisPaola FerranteBeth GoobieNina Philomena HonoratLiz HowardMaureen HynesGeorge K IlsleyEve JosephIan KetekuJudith KrauseM Travis LaneMary Dean LeeCanisia LubrinRandy LundyDavid LyYohani MendisPamela MosherSusan MusgraveTéa MutonjiBarbara NickelOttavia PaluchKirsten PendreighEmily Pohl-WearyDavid RomandaMatthew RooneyZoe Imani SharpeSue SinclairJohn StefflerSarah Yi-Mei TsiangArielle TwistDavid Ezra WangPhoebe WangHayden WardElana WolffEugenia ZuroskiJan Zwicky