Le K ne se prononce pas

The more I read short stories, the more I am dazzled by their beauty and power. I have rediscovered this literary genre in the last yearand the pleasure it gives me is really special. These texts are concentrates of emotions, and they are so finely written that one can never quite know what to expect.

This is what prompted me to read Le K ne se prononce pasby Suvankham Thammavongsa. The theme of this collection, Lao immigrants in the Western world, intrigued me. And I, who like to be exhilarated by the way a text is written, had plenty of reasons to do so.

Summary

The heroes and heroines are all different: a child who insists on pronouncing the "k" in the word "knife", a woman who works in a slaughterhouse, a mother who has a real gift for collecting earthworms in the fields, a man who leaves boxing to help his sister in her nail salon. They don't know each other, but they are all connected: they are immigrants from Laos, essential workers, lost in a world that remains foreign to them. Despite the countless difficulties they face, racism and prejudice, they cling fiercely to life.

Impressions

The author, born in a Laotian refugee camp in Thailand, has never herself set foot in Laos. As she says, "Laos is often reduced to a footnote in the Vietnam War." By the way, in case you can't remember how to locate it on a map, here it is:

If we know little or nothing about this country, this book at least allows us to dive into the reality of those who come from it.

Often, we try to make people empathize by grabbing their attention with vigor and shaking their feelings as hard as possible. But sometimes there's no need for big literary flights of fancy or big shocking endings. The author's writing is simple, fine and honest, and thanks to it, I felt like I was getting inside the characters' heads. I didn't understand everything, I didn't know exactly where they were, I didn't know their story, and that was intentional. The author wanted the readers to be just as lost and displaced as they were. I was gently moved.

I know that I will never reach a full understanding of the reality of these immigrants, but I believe that it is by reading this kind of texts that I will be able to get closer to it.

This book won the 2020 Giller Prize and was named one of the top 100 titles of 2020 by Time Magazine. That's not for nothing.