This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman fiction at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice will hear

Suvankam Damavansa read her story Bozo from the April 8th 2024 issue of

the magazine. Damavansa has published four volumes of poetry and the story collection How to Pronounce Knife,

which won the Giller Prize in 2020.

Now here's Suvancum Tamavangsa. Thama Banksa.

Bozo, the man stood in front of an arrangement of bottles and glasses. He knew what everything in those bottles tasted like and what to pair them with. He was a bartender. He could make a

drink for you if you wanted. All you had to do was lean over and ask.

I wanted something he could make,

something no one else had.

I asked him if he could make this for me,

and he nodded.

I saw him pause and think.

What he had in mind seemed to require him to go and look for things. He

rummaged through a plastic bag and plucked something out.

When he brought the drink to me, it looked like water.

In the middle of the drink was a mint leaf in the shape of a heart.

The leaf floated there and then it didn't anymore. I didn't know how to talk to him. He was right in front of me,

making drinks that other people in the room had asked for, so I just watched him work.

That was all he was doing, working.

He was someone who could carry four glasses using the space his palms and

fingers could provide. He did this repeatedly. He never fumbled or broke anything. He cut up oranges and

...