Ocean Vuong's writing delves into the intricate landscapes of identity, family, and trauma with a voice that is both lyrical and unflinchingly honest. His work explores profound themes of love, loss, and the search for belonging, often drawing from his Vietnamese heritage and experiences with displacement. Vuong's distinctive style is characterized by its raw emotional power, striking imagery, and profound philosophical inquiries, inviting readers into a deep examination of the human condition.
The Emperor of Gladness follows a wayward young man in New England who, out of sheer chance, becomes the caretaker for an 82-year-old widow living with dementia. 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 masterful story of friendship and how much we're willing to risk to possess one of life's most treasured mercies: a second chance.
Gedichte vom Autor des gefeierten Debütromans »Auf Erden sind wir kurz grandios«. Hier ist sie wieder, die unverwechselbare Stimme von Ocean Vuong, die einen sofort in Bann zieht – ob in seinem gefeierten Roman 'Auf Erden sind wir kurz grandios' oder in diesem Gedichtband, der Vuongs Ruhm begründet hat. In den zwischen Versform und Prosa changierenden Gedichten beschwört Vuong seine Vergangenheit herauf: die Kindheit, die Liebe zum Vater, die Gewalt, die er als schwuler Sohn vietnamesischer Einwanderer auch im Land der erträumten Freiheit Amerika erfährt. Sein preisgekrönter Lyrikband wagt es, mit unerhörter Dringlichkeit und grandioser Poesie die Wunden der Menschheit zu erkunden.
This definitive collection includes more than 100 poems composed over the last forty years. Thich Nhat Hanh's clarity shines forth in Call Me by My True Names, transforming the pain and difficulty of war and exile into a celebration of awareness and the human spirit.
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. Vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong's poems contend with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the value of joy in a perennially fractured American spirit.The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time is a Mother is a return and a forging-forth all at once.
** Sunday Times Bestseller ** Brilliant, heart-breaking and highly original, TikTok has fallen in love with Ocean Vuong's shattering portrait of a family. This 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. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. It serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation. 'A marvel' Marlon James 'Luminous, shattering, urgent, necessary' Celeste Ng
Winner of the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize 'Reading Vuong is like watching a fish move- he manages the varied currents of English with muscled intuition.' New Yorker An extraordinary debut from a young Vietnamese American, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other. Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language, Vuong writes about the most profound subjects - love and loss, conflict, grief, memory and desire - and attends to them all with lines that feel newly-minted, graceful in their cadences, passionate and hungry in their tender, close attention- '...the chief of police/facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola./A palm-sized photo of his father soaking/beside his left ear.' This is an unusual, important book- both gentle and visceral, vulnerable and assured, and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years. 'These are poems of exquisite beauty, unashamed of romance, and undaunted by looking directly into the horrors of war, the silences of history. One of the most important debut collections for a generation.' Andrew McMillan Winner of the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection A Guardian / Daily Telegraph Book of the Year PBS Summer Recommendation
