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Ocean Vuong

Biography

Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections NIGHT SKY WITH EXIT WOUNDS and TIME IS A MOTHER, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Ocean Vuong

Books by Ocean Vuong

Time Is a Mother
by Ocean Vuong - Nonfiction, Poetry

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong’s poems circle fragmented lives to find restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong - Fiction

ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born --- a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam --- and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity.