Ocean Vuong Popular Books

Ocean Vuong Biography & Facts

Ocean Vuong (born Vương Quốc Vinh, Vietnamese: [vɨəŋ˧ kuək˧˥ viɲ˧]; born 14 October, 1988) is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. He is the recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019. He received a MacArthur Grant that same year. Early life Vuong was born in Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam. His grandmother grew up in the Vietnamese countryside, and his grandfather was a white American Navy soldier, originally from Michigan. His grandparents met during the Vietnam War, married, and had three children, including Vuong's mother. His grandfather had gone back to visit home in the U.S. but was unable to return when Saigon fell to communist forces. His grandmother separated his mother and aunts in orphanages, concerned for their survival. They fled Vietnam after a police officer came to suspect that his mother was of mixed heritage, leaving her prone to discrimination by the regime's labour policies at the time.Two-year-old Vuong and his family eventually arrived in a refugee camp in the Philippines before achieving asylum and migrating to the United States, settling in Hartford, Connecticut, alongside six relatives. His father abandoned the family after this. Vuong was reunited with his paternal grandfather later in life. Vuong, who suspects dyslexia runs in his family, was the first in his family to learn to read, at the age of eleven. At 15 years old, Vuong worked on a tobacco farm illegally and would later describe his experiences on the farm in On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Education Vuong attended Glastonbury High School in Glastonbury, Connecticut, a school known for academic excellence. "I didn't know how to make use of it," Vuong has stated, noting that his grade point average at one point was 1.7.While in high school, he told fellow Glastonbury graduate Kat Chow he "understood he had to leave Connecticut." After spending some time at Manchester Community College, Vuong headed to Pace University in New York to study marketing. His time there lasted only a few weeks before he understood it "wasn't for him."He then enrolled at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, where he studied 19th-century English literature under poet and novelist Ben Lerner, and received his B.A. in English. He received his M.F.A. in poetry from New York University. Career Vuong's poems and essays have been published in various journals, including Poetry, The Nation, TriQuarterly, Guernica, The Rumpus, Boston Review, Narrative Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.His first chapbook, Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press), was a 2011 "Over The Rainbow" selection for notable books on non-heterosexuality by the American Library Association. His second chapbook, No (YesYes Books), was released in 2013. His debut full-length collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, was released by Copper Canyon Press in 2016. His first novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, was published by Penguin Press on June 4, 2019. While working on the novel, the biggest issue Vuong had was with grammatical tense, since there are no past participles in Vietnamese. Vuong also regarded the book as a "phantom novel" dedicated to the "phantom readership of the mother, of [his] family," who are illiterate and thus cannot read his book. Vuong's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer three months before the publication of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. After his mother died in 2019, Vuong began writing his second collection of poetry, Time is a Mother, which has been described as a "search for life after the death of his mother."In August 2020, Vuong was revealed as the seventh writer to contribute to the Future Library project. The project, which compiles original works by writers each year from 2014 to 2114, will remain unread until the collected 100 works are eventually published in 2114. Discussing his contribution to the project, Vuong opined that, "So much of publishing is about seeing your name in the world, but this is the opposite, putting the future ghost of you forward. You and I will have to die in order for us to get these texts. That is a heady thing to write towards, so I will sit with it a while."Vuong has stated his view of fiction as a moral vehicle. Discussing On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, he said: "Fiction is strongest when it launches a moral question. When it goes out and seeks to answer. The questions that we couldn't ask in life because the costs would be too much. Fiction and narrative art give us a vicarious opportunity to see these questions play out, at no true cost to our own."He served as the 2019-2020 Artist-In-Resident at NYU's Asian/Pacific/American Institute, also working with the school's Center for Refugee Poetics and the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House. In 2022, he became a tenured Professor of Creative Writing at NYU, and has also taught in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 2022, Vuong was named as one of "32 Essential Asian American Writers" by Buzzfeed Books. Personal life Vuong has described himself as being raised by women. During a conversation with a customer, his mother, a manicurist, expressed a desire to go to the beach, and pronounced the word "beach" as "bitch". The customer suggested she use the word "ocean" instead of "beach". After learning the definition of the word "ocean" — the most massive classified body of water, such as the Pacific Ocean, which connects the United States and Vietnam — she renamed her son Ocean.Three months before the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was published, Vuong's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she passed away in November 2019. Vuong wrote Time Is a Mother while in mourning. According to him, this collection of poems is the search for life after this heartbreaking event.In November 2021, an excerpt from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was featured in that year's New South Wales Higher School Certificate exams. The paper, the first of two English exams taken by year twelve students in the Australian state, required examinees to read an excerpt from the novel and answer a short question responding to it. On the exam's conclusion, Australian school students bombarded Vuong with confused inquiries via Instagram, to which the author responded in humorous fashion.Vuong is gay, and is a practicing Zen Buddhist. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his partner, Peter Bienkowski, and his half-brother whom he took in after their mother passed away. Works Books Verse Prose & essays Television Awards and honours As of 2024, Vuong has won, received a nomination, or was considered for literature awards as well as career awards for fellowship and grant, residences, and listicles. See also LGBT culture in New York City List of LGBT people from New.... Discover the Ocean Vuong popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ocean Vuong books.

Best Seller Ocean Vuong Books of 2024

  • The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem

    Jeremy Noel-Tod

    'A wonderful book an invigorating revelation ... An essential collection of prose poems from across the globe, by old masters and new, reveals the form's astonishing range' Kate...

  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches synopsis, comments

    The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

    Matsuo Basho & Nobuyuki Yuasa

    'It was with aweThat I beheldFresh leaves, green leaves,Bright in the sun'When the Japanese haiku master Basho composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student ...

  • Open Throat synopsis, comments

    Open Throat

    Henry Hoke

    Finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize. “Open Throat is what fiction should be.” The New York Times Book ReviewOne of Elle’s Best Summer Books of 2023, and one of iD’s ...

  • Wild Dances synopsis, comments

    Wild Dances

    William Lee Adams

    "A pageturning, tragicomic memoir . . . By ingeniously weaving improbable and conflicting forces that make up his personal history, Adams affirms a resilient idea of home that year...

  • Taking Liberties synopsis, comments

    Taking Liberties

    Leontia Flynn

    From one of Ireland's most important poets, a collection about motherhood at a time of continuous crisis'The real thing' MICHAEL LONGLEY'Everyone should be reading her' OBSERVERThe...

  • Slide synopsis, comments

    Slide

    Mark Pajak

    SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE SEAMUS HEANEY FIRST COLLECTION PRIZE'Fresh, urgent, alive... genius' PATIENCE AGBABIThis assured and arresting first collec...

  • I Went To See My Father synopsis, comments

    I Went To See My Father

    Kyung-Sook Shin & Anton Hur

    An instant bestseller in Korea and the follow up to the international bestseller, Please Look After Mom; centering on a woman’s efforts to reconnect with her aging father, unc...

  • Every Where Alien synopsis, comments

    Every Where Alien

    Brad Walrond

    Every Where Alien has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

  • We Are All From Somewhere Else synopsis, comments

    We Are All From Somewhere Else

    Ruth Padel

    First published as The Mara Crossing, now with new and updated material'A prodigy, a book of wonders. Wonder, pity and terror, the searing section of voices in transit coercing co...

  • Rotten Days in Late Summer synopsis, comments

    Rotten Days in Late Summer

    Ralf Webb

    A TELEGRAPH AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD ...

  • Lie With Me synopsis, comments

    Lie With Me

    Philippe Besson

    “I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that li...

  • All Men Want to Know synopsis, comments

    All Men Want to Know

    Nina Bouraoui & Aneesa Abbas Higgins

    'Intense, gorgeous, troubling, seductive a novel that has to be surrendered to rather than read' Sarah Waters AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN TRANSLATES AWARD ...

  • Everything You Ever Wanted synopsis, comments

    Everything You Ever Wanted

    Luiza Sauma

    Read along with Florence Welch this February and March as part of the Between Two Books book club'Wry, beautiful, surprising and deeply moving' Rachel Seiffert, Guardian'Captures s...

  • Antiemetic for Homesickness synopsis, comments

    Antiemetic for Homesickness

    Romalyn Ante

    Longlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize 2021Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2021: A 'tourdeforce'An Irish Times and Poetry School Book of the Year 2020'A day will...

  • Assurances synopsis, comments

    Assurances

    J. O. Morgan

    WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD 2018SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTIONA warpoem both historic and frighteningly topical, Assurances begins in the 1950s dur...

  • Of Love and Desire synopsis, comments

    Of Love and Desire

    Louis de Bernières

    Of Love and Desire is a rich collection of love poems from Louis de Bernières, written over a lifetime, and capturing its many forms – from rapture, infatuation, urgency, to sorrow...

  • Requeening synopsis, comments

    Requeening

    Amanda Moore

    “A rare feat for any book of poems, let alone a debut, in that the lines, wrought with such deft precision and care, mark the sum total of a life richly lived and felt at the ...

  • The Boy with a Bird in His Chest synopsis, comments

    The Boy with a Bird in His Chest

    Emme Lund

    Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prize“A modern comingofage full of love, desperation, heartache, and magic” (Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize–winning author...

  • Ballad of a Happy Immigrant synopsis, comments

    Ballad of a Happy Immigrant

    Leo Boix

    'It isn't often that one encounters a sensibility so interested in our world and so compelling in its powers of attentiveness. Leo Boix's poetry has a wide tilt and scope. It sing...

  • Teeth in the Back of my Neck synopsis, comments

    Teeth in the Back of my Neck

    Monika Radojevic

    'This is a courageous, arresting debut from a poet to watch' Independent'A vital contribution to literature' HuckChosen as one of Bustle's Best Debut Books of 2021Chosen as one of ...

  • Slip synopsis, comments

    Slip

    Amelia Loulli

    A daring and beautifully crafted debut collection about the experience of abortion – from an emerging poet and winner of the Northern Writers’ AwardAmelia Loulli opens this fearles...

  • The Liberators synopsis, comments

    The Liberators

    E. J. Koh

    "Spare, beautiful and richly layered, The Liberators is dazzling." Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage “A piercing, patient debut by one of our finest chroniclers of ...

  • Playtime synopsis, comments

    Playtime

    Andrew McMillan

    WINNER OF THE POLARI PRIZE 2019‘Vivid, accessible and honest, sometimes uncomfortably so’ Alan Bennett, London Review of BooksIn these intimate, sometimes painfully frank poems, An...

  • Loop of Jade synopsis, comments

    Loop of Jade

    Sarah Howe

    WINNER OF THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE 2015WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES / PETERS FRASER + DUNLOP YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTI...

  • The Perseverance synopsis, comments

    The Perseverance

    Raymond Antrobus

    Featured on NPR's Morning EditionA Best Book of the Year at The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Poetry School, New York Public Library, and Entropy MagazineWinner of the Ted ...

  • My Baby First Birthday synopsis, comments

    My Baby First Birthday

    Jenny Zhang

    A New York Public Library Best Book of 2020A Best Read of 2020 at Ms. Magazine"To read Jenny Zhang is to embrace primal states: pleasure, hunger, longing and rage." TIME Radiant an...

  • Pig synopsis, comments

    Pig

    Sam Sax

    From the brilliantly talented National Poetry Series and James Laughlin Award winner comes a third collection of poems that uses the humble pig as a lens to explore the body, faith...