Souvankham Thammavongsa

Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1978, to Laotian parents. Her spare and elegant poems have been championed by some of Canada’s finest poets, including Dionne Brand and Michael Ondaatje. Her first collection, Small Arguments, won the ReLit Award for Poetry in 2004, and was praised for its “beautiful jeweller’s-eye lyrics.” Her second collection, Found, explored the traces of life her father kept in a scrapbook during the family’s time in the refugee camp. It was made into a short film by filmmaker Paramita Nath and screened at festivals worldwide. Her new short story collection is How to Pronounce Knife. Thammavongsa lives in Toronto.