The New York Times bestselling debut novel from the prize-winning prodigy
Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and 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 Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Nation, New Republic, New Yorker, and the New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
A stunning, beautiful book... His writing is phenomenal...
Simply brilliant. * BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review *
This is some of the most moving writing I've read... The
tenderness of the prose feels like a triumph against a
world hellbent on embittering the tenderhearted... the truths
arrived at in this book are valuable precisely because they are
steeped in feeling. * New York Times *
Vuong is surely a literary descendant of the author of Leaves
of Grass. Emerging from the most marginalized circumstances, he has
produced a lyrical work of self-discovery that's shockingly
intimate and insistently universal... Not so much briefly
gorgeous as permanently stunning. -- Ron Charles * Washington
Post *
Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous confirms
him as a master of inventive language that has its roots in the
spoken word but reaches shimmering heights of lyricism, too. --
Joseph O'Connor * Sunday Independent *Books of the Year* *
Vuong is a prodigious talent, his handling of words and
images both brutal and delicate, his treatment of violence, sex and
the body radically clear-eyed. * Financial Times *
Vuong as a writer is daring. He goes where the hurt is, creating a
novel saturated with yearning and ache... He transforms the
emotional, the visceral, the individual into the political in an
unforgettable - indeed, gorgeous - novel. * Time Magazine *
Ocean Vuong's fantastic new novel On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous reminded me that every word can be an incantation, and
that beauty does hard and important work. -- Rebecca Solnit *
New Statesman *
A stunning, frankly unforgettable debut novel... It's not
surprising that novels by poets often include some of the loveliest
prose, but Vuong's is especially luminous... On Earth We Are
Briefly Gorgeous is so many things; a love story from a son
to his mother; an exploration of masculinity and race; and a series
of limpid thoughts about the world... Everything about this book
makes me feel glad to live in an era when the novel still
matters, when the human ability to bring together words and
sentences can lead to such scintillating, poignant language.
-- James Robertson * Herald Scotland *
Vuong's material is gripping even in precis... Vuong's
determination to see well-trodden ground afresh, with unremitting
complexity, is extremely rare... In these
authenticity-hungry times, Vuong could have let his sensational
biography simply "speak for itself". There is a great deal to
admire: that he was able to give such personal material
novelistic treatment; that he had the patience to wait until that
was possible; that he only had wait until he was 30... [an]
exciting talent. * Sunday Times *
[Vuong] mines his extraordinary family story with passion and
beauty... Vuong writes wonderfully. -- Tessa Hadley * Guardian
*
This is a stunning, sensuous novel that paints a portrait of
a mother and her child struggling to work out how to live in a new
land. There is fear and anger but the boy's love for his mother -
and for the world that surrounds him - sings off the page. *
Monocle *
Utterly captivating writing. -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail
*
Vuong can write with exceptional beauty and precision...
[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] is a deeply moving
book - I welled up roughly every 40 pages... one of the great
strengths of this book is the way it elevates the personal into the
political. Little Dog's story is the story of modern America. --
Tristram Fane Saunders * Daily Telegraph *
One of American's most noteworthy poets. His poems are
beautiful and unpredictable, and the same goes for this, his
debut novel... brilliantly raw. * Sunday Times *
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a masterpiece: a staggeringly
beautiful book, full of wisdom and pain. It seems obvious now,
though it didn't before, that a young gay poet born in Saigon would
write the Great American Novel. I really think it's that.
A huge gift to the world.
Readers who are familiar with Vuong's poetry will recognise in this
book the same lyricism, the same skill in turning a beautiful and
poignant phrase which renders many of Vuong's pronouncements
timeless, lending them the quality of adages and
deeply-earned wisdom... This is certainly a courageous
work; some of the details of the young narrator's relationship
(particularly his sexual relationship) with Trevor seem new to
fiction... This is a work that has much to say, and is in
many respects worthy of attention. -- Sean Hewitt * Irish Times
*
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous will be described - rightly - as
luminous, shattering, urgent, necessary. But the word I keep
circling back to is raw: that's how powerful the emotions here are,
and how you'll feel after reading it - scoured down to bone. With a
poet's precision, Ocean Vuong examines whether putting words to
one's experience can bridge wounds that span generations, and
whether it's ever possible to be truly heard by those we love
most.
Look out: here's a new, beautiful, battering ram of fiction.
Vuong is rewriting what fiction is supposed to be and it is a
privilege to watch.
A bruised, breathtaking love letter never meant to be sent. A
marvel.
Vuong is a mightily gifted observer... Some lines have the
almost hallucinatory exactness of his best poems... moving and
rarely less than excellent... [On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous is] unleashed in every regard. * New York
Times *
This is one of the best novels I've ever read. Ocean Vuong is a
master. This book is a masterpiece.
Ocean Vuong runs up against the limits of language-this book is
addressed to a mother who cannot read it-and expands our sense
of what literature can make visible, thinkable, felt across borders
and generations and genres. This is a courageous, embodied
inquiry into the tangle of colonial and personal histories. It is
also a gorgeous argument for astonishment over irony-for the
transformative possibilities of love.
Ocean Vuong's novel is a profound consideration of identity, as
well as a work of sensuous, poetic detail... we are made aware
of his sense of invisibility as a Vietnamese-American while
becoming totally immersed in his world. This tension between voice
and silence is what lends the novel its gentle, dignified attack. *
New Statesman *
This book - gorgeous is right there in the title - finds
incredible, aching beauty in the deep observation of love in
many forms. Ocean Vuong's debut novel contains all the power of
his poetry, and I finished the book knowing that we are seeing
only the very beginning of his truly magnificent talent.
A candid meditation on masculinity, art, and the inescapable
pull of opioids... Vuong peels apart phrases and reconfigures them
into new, surprising ideas. * Elle *
An epistolary masterpiece... Fearless, revelatory,
extraordinary. * Library Journal (starred review) *
Disarmingly frank, raw in subject matter but polished in style and
language, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous reveals the
strengths and limitations of human connection and the importance of
speaking your truth. * BookPage *
[Vuong's] first foray into fiction is poetic in the deepest sense -
not merely on the level of language, but in its structure and its
intelligence... The result is an uncategorizable hybrid of what
reads like memoir, bildungsroman, and book-length poem. More
important than labels, though, is the novel's earnest and
open-hearted belief in the necessity of stories and language for
our survival. A raw and incandescently written foray into
fiction by one of our most gifted poets. * Kirkus (starred
review) *
Casting a truly literary spell, Vuong's tale of language and
origin, beauty and the power of story, is an enrapturing first
novel. * Booklist (starred review) *
Sometimes a writer comes along and stops your breath. I'm
reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and there is so
little air moving through my body as I read. When writing is
this good, who needs air?
A poignant exploration of a family history, a celebration of
maternal love and an unflinching examination of race and class.
Vuong's novel is one of the most anticipated of the year. *
National *
[A] marvel of a book...[with] exquisite language. * Refinery29
*
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is one of the most
anticipated novels of the year... a piece of autobiographical
fiction that avoids all the traps of that genre... The book has a
poetic density that is at once elliptical and unflinching in its
gaze, a testimony to the endlessly complicated dynamics of damage.
* Observer *
As an evocation of the tragic underside of American life, there's
no denying its [On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] poetic
power. * Mail on Sunday *
Ocean Vuong is a magician with words, when he writes, it's as if
language itself is dancing. On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous... [is] a brutally honest exploration of race, class
and masculinity. This debut novel is a luminous, mesmerising
gift... Extraordinary. * attitude, *Book of the Month* *
This moving, powerful debut from prizewinning poet Ocean Vuong...
[is] a graceful exploration of race, class, and masculinity. *
Sunday Express *
Vuong solidifies the epistolary as an insurrectionary American
form, offering it as a means of the States' oppressed to voice
their discontents with unrelenting eloquence... Vuong writes from a
site of pain and compassion, for himself, for his mother, and for
everyone else. * The Arts Desk *
A moving, glittering letter from a son to a mother... direct,
touching, stunningly wrought, [On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous is] staggeringly good. * UK Press Syndication *
A brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity, as
well as a discovery of how immersed we are in addiction, violence,
and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness. * SCAN,
*Summer reads of 2019* *
Unforgettable... Asking questions central to the American moment,
immersed as it is 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. *
SheerLuxe, *Summer reads of 2019* *
Vuong's gambit is to make the reader reckon not only with difficult
subjects, but also pay generous, open attention to the world...
This consummately American novel both documents the nation's
wounded psyche while giving its protagonist a path to healing. *
Prospect *
Vuong...[is] a keen anthropologist of the contemporary American
experience. * Times Literary Supplement *
A beautiful novel full of raw feelings. * Scotsman *
[A] phosphorescent debut novel... Vuong layers past and present
brilliantly in a shifting series of brief episodes and striking
mood-musings from within the mind of his protagonist... the
hyperreality of Little Dog's self-awareness is always a delight. *
Tablet *
Staggering, sensual and poetic -- Pandora Sykes
[A] stunning debut... Ocean Vuong crafts lyrical, masterful prose
in this emotionally-powerful piece of story telling. On Earth
We're Briefly Gorgeous is sure to stay with readers long after
they have put the novel down. * Eastern Daily Press *
A brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. *
Asian Art Newspaper, *Books of the Year* *
A tender exploration of violence, migration and language. --
Justine Jordan * Guardian, *Books of the Year* *
This romantic, lusciously written debut lingers over kisses. * The
Times, *Books of the Year* *
A magical synthesis of memoir, fiction and poetry. -- Joyce Carol
Oates * Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year* *
So very full of beauty and power. Also, grace. -- Tommy Orange *
Observer, *Books of the Year* *
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a
stunning, relentless work of pure passion and I was captivated from
the go. -- Una-Minh Kavanagh * Sunday Independent *Books of the
Year* *
A story that is deeply relatable, understandable and can find
common currency with us all. He uses his differences to connect us,
to show the links that bind us, to explore violence, masculinity,
poverty and yearning... you'll quickly get carried away by his
undercurrents into spaces and places you'd perhaps never thought of
exploring or even realised existed. * Gscene *
Vuong's gift lies in his ability to write with beautiful
specificity while digging into the wounds of immigration, culture,
queerness and memory. I've read many very good books in 2019 but
none have obliterated me like On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous. -- Katie Goh * Skinny, *Books of the Year* *
Ocean Vuong is a magician with words. When he writes, it's as if
language itself is dancing. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
is... a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity.
This debut novel is a luminous, mesmerising gift. * attitude,
*Books of the Year* *
Astounding. -- Malin Hay * Upcoming *
Vuong jettisons the prose for poetic verse, with Roland Barthes,
Duchamp's Fountain and queer love all collapsing into
splintering lines of verse. Vuong's sentences are so beautiful,
sometimes I would say them over and over again in my head, hoping I
might be able to trap them in there. -- Annie Lord * Independent
*
[Vuong is] brilliant and so flexible with language and has such an
understanding of what an emotion incarnate is, he is able to not
condense it but to heighten it across languages, across countries,
across codes as characters speak to one another. He's peerless. --
Bryan Washington * Observer *
[A] triumphant debut novel... On Earth We're Briefly
Gorgeous felt like a true masterpiece being crafted before my
eyes, and I was devastated to see the novel draw to a close. I
truly can't recommend this book highly enough - I don't remember
the last time I was so floored after reading something that I had
to take the rest of the day off speaking to family... a passionate,
eye-opening journey, and is most certainly one to be added to your
lockdown reading list. -- Rebecca Scott * Glasgow Guardian *
Beautifully written... Unlike anything I have read before -- Ellie
Down * Exepose *
An engrossing coming-of-age story. -- Mariella Frostrup * Sunday
Times *
[Vuong] is an author of incredible and magical talent, with
many of his paragraphs reading like the most beautiful poetry...
An absolute must-read * Glamour *
Raw, lyrical and at times hearth-wrenching, On Earth
We're Briefly Gorgeous is a book of real beauty * i *
For a long time after I read this, I could still feel the impact of
his story. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an experience that
you need to have. * DIVA *
I read the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean
Vuong while on tour and the language often stopped me in my
tracks... powerful. -- Dua Lipa * Guardian, *Summer Reads of
2023* *
Inventive... [On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] just stops
you as a reader to marvel at the beautifully constructed
narrative * Art Newspaper *
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