The Emperor of Gladness

A fine-grained social panorama driven by the developing camaraderie of an ensemble cast bonded in precariousness and pain * Observer *Depicts the emotions of its protagonists with a sensitivity and lusciousness… contains moments of almost unbearable poignancy * Guardian *Firmly grounded and perfectly tuned… With its poetic morsels, ambivalent love for the rural northeast, and many-layered immigrant stories, The Emperor of Gladness may well be the first millennial Great American Novel * ArtReview *Heartbreaking, heartwarming yet unsentimental, and savagely comic all at the same time, The Emperor of Gladness is about just how wobbly things can become * Guardian *Tender and moving, The Emperor of Gladness is about people on the margins of society and sanity. To my surprise and delight, Vuong’s novel is also wryly, subtly, wittily - and sometimes outrageously - a comedy as well as a tragedy – Rebecca SolnitHis most vivid, ambitious work yet * Dazed *Remarkable… A sui generis take on the surprising and cruel ways violence is passed on across generations * Kirkus Starred Review *[A] heartbreaking epic… Witten in Vuong’s inimitable prose…[it] will doubtless be counted among the great American novels * Bookseller *A masterwork – Bryan WashingtonThis stunning book moved me so much, I fell in love with its characters and grieved their absence in my life when I turned the last page – Caitríona BalfeExquisite… Life at the margins of modern America has rarely felt so vivid * Mail on Sunday *The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. It has an epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Its two main characters - the young Hai, so smart and troubled and ready for the world, and Grazina, who carries the weight of history as both burden and rare wisdom - are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world – Colm TóibínSad, haunting but ultimately hopeful this is a gut punch and an warm embrace rendered out of poetic, tender prose * AnOther, Books to Look Out For 2025 *[An] innovative, playful novel’ * Financial Times, Books to Look Out For 2025 *Some of the most beautiful writing I’ve experienced in my lifetime … it’s poetic literature and I think that Ocean Vuong’s ability to capture the essence of just ordinary people is like nobody I’ve ever experienced – Oprah WinfreyDevastatingly beautiful…a captivating tale of what it means to be human * UK Press Syndication *A book of moral, imaginative ideas with gripping stories, wonderful characters and writing that’s poetic and witty. I loved it * Spectator *An ode to chosen families… Ocean Vuong’s poetic novel takes us on a journey through time, loss, trauma and the little acts of kindness that help us heal * Harper’s Bazaar *Magnificent … In writing this book, Vuong may have joined the ranks of an elite few great novelists * Los Angeles Times *There are moments that made me laugh out loud in the midst of the beauty and the pain and the epic sweep of these individual lives – Ari Shapiro

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time is a Mother, as well as 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 splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.