Politics and Prose
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Ocean Vuong — The Emperor of Gladness - with Nicole Chung
Posted
July 8, 2025
Views
10,626
Likes
276
Engagement
2.60%
July 8, 2025
10,626
276
2.60%
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1:19:41Now PlayingWatch author Ocean Vuong's book talk and reading at Sixth and I in Washington, D.C.
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*footage courtesy of Sixth and I
From the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, comes The Emperor of Gladness—a novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.
One evening in East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to an elderly widow with dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he becomes her caretaker. The unlikely pair develop a life-altering bond built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.
The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. It’s about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, Ocean Vuong used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.
Vuong is in conversation with Nicole Chung, the author of the memoirs A Living Remedy, named a Notable Book by The New York Times, and All You Can Ever Know, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
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