Daniel Saldana Paris Books

In July 1994, Teresa leaves her home in Mexico City for Chiapas, drawn by the emergence of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, leaving behind her sixteen-year-old daughter, a ten-year-old son, and a husband she regrets marrying. Twenty-three years later, her son, the narrator, reflects on that transformative summer while confined to his bed. He recalls his struggles with origami, interactions with his sister's friends, and his quest to find his mother, guided by the children's books he reads. Forming an alliance with his sister's dubious boyfriend, he embarks on a bus journey to locate Teresa. Along the way, he confronts the duality of human nature, experiencing both evil and the kindness of strangers. Through premonitory dreams and flashbacks, he begins to understand the complexities of adulthood. As the summer unfolds, so does the narrator's current life; his father has passed, he is estranged from his sister, and he alone can piece together the painful secrets surrounding Teresa's disappearance. This narrative explores a child's awakening, the power of memory, and the paralyzing impact of unresolved family trauma.

Slackers meets Savage Detectives in this polyphonic ode to the pleasures of not measuring up.

Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

The moving, powerful and urgent English-language debut from one of the brightest young stars in world literature