She respects her father, and when she’s not sure how to say “knife,” she asks him-and gets in trouble at school when she insists to the class that the “k” must be pronounced. “How to Pronounce Knife” is about Joy (or so her name has been anglicized), a little girl who’s the daughter of Lao immigrants. The title story depicts what could be an episode from her youth, and while the details are unique to her, the emotions it evokes are instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up as a first-generation immigrant.

Thammavongsa is a patient stylist who gets at universal truths through the particulars of her life. The author’s characters emerge from a very specific background she grew up in Toronto and was born of Lao parents in a refugee camp in Thailand in a recent Paris Review interview she explains that, “Most people are recognized as a citizen by the country they are born in, but in a refugee camp, you are considered stateless.” That sense of not belonging runs throughout these highly efficient and effective stories, even when they don’t directly address the immigrant experience. With spare prose and a subtle mastery of tone, poet and essayist Souvankham Thammavongsa captures this alienation time and heartbreaking time again in How to Pronounce Knife, an impressive debut collection of short stories.

For many who brave the journey to a strange country, escaping violence and persecution or simply looking for a better life, the new world can become a source of anxiety and isolation.

How do you pronounce knife