OCEAN VUONG is a writer, professor, and photographer known for his novels The Emperor of Gladness and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which won the American Book Award and The Mark Twain Award. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. Vuong is also the author of poetry collections, including Time Is a Mother, a finalist for the Griffin Prize, and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book that won the T.S. Eliot Prize. His numerous honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the Poetry Foundation. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, in a working class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he currently serves as a Professor in Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA Program at NYU.

POR QUÉ SE UNEN A NOSOTROS

No one who has read or heard Ocean Vuong is likely to forget the experience. His is a singular voice in contemporary fiction and poetry – transformative, sensitive, and brave. Four years after his bestselling On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, he returns with his second novel, The Emperor of Gladness, an unforgettable story about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive. Vuong’s literary alchemy is the mixing of grit with grace through tenderness, and his brilliance and heart have never been more in evidence.

Photo credit – Tom Hines