Publication Date: 20/06/2019 ISBN: 9781787331501 Category:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Publication Date: 20/06/2019 ISBN: 9781787331501 Category:
Hardback

£12.99

Out of stock

Description

**THE SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**
**WINNER OF THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD 2020**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2020**

Brilliant, heart-breaking, tender, and highly original – poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous 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 – a history whose epicentre is rooted in Vietnam – and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. 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.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

**A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD 2020**

‘This romantic, lusciously written debut lingers over kisses’ The Times

‘So very full of beauty and power. Also, grace’ Tommy Orange, Observer

‘A magical synthesis of memoir, fiction and poetry’ Joyce Carol Oates, TLS

Publisher Review

"Everything is beautiful in this debut... Vuong has originality running through his veins, and a good deal of humour and impish charm... This impressive debut hints at even greater things to come." * The Times * "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 * "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 * "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." * 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." * 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." * Daily Telegraph *

Book experts at your service

What are you looking for?

A recommendation
Something specific
  • Mr B's Recommendation Station
  • Fill in the three questions below, along with your name and email address, and our book experts will be in touch soon with their personal recommendations

  • I'm after something specific
  • Tell us about the book, author or subject you're looking for, along with your name and email address and our book experts will be in touch as soon as possible