On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

An instant New York Times Bestseller

Named one of the most anticipated books of 2019 by Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Oprah.com, Huffington Post, The A.V. Club, Nylon, The Week, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more.

A lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly intimate and insistently universal.Not so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning. --Ron Charles, The Washington Post

Poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling

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 twenties, 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. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Ocean Vuong attended Brooklyn College after being born in Saigon, Vietnam. He has two chapbooks and a full-length collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, to his credit. Ocean Vuong, a 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellow and 2016 Whiting Prize winner, lives in New York City.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780593104293
ISBN 10	0593104293
Title	On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Author	Ocean Vuong
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Diversified Publishing
Year published	2019-06-04
Number of pages	368
Prizes	Winner of Mark Twain American Voice In Literature Award 2020, Commended for PEN/Faulkner Award 2020, Commended for Kirkus Prize (Fiction) 2019
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.