The New Yorker: Fiction · The New Yorker
Souvankham Thammavongsa Reads Samanta Schweblin
July 1, 2025·49 min·4 clips
Souvankham Thammavongsa reveals how a story made her weep for a character she once despised.
As heard by us
A spare, unsettling reading in which a toy store's ordered world gives way to a child's fear.
Souvankham Thammavongsa reads Samanta Schweblin's "The Size of Things" as a story of ordinary objects becoming charged with dread. The toy store begins in careful color and order, all display cases, aisles, shelves, and miniature promises, before Enrique's fear unsettles the…
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