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.>

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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 Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur 'Genius Grant' and the American Book Award, he was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and currently splits his time between western Massachusetts and New York City.

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THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER AND TIKTOK SENSATION

Ocean Vuong returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of 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 Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond that has the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which our lives are changed by the most unlikely of people. When Hai takes a job at a diner to support himself and Grazina, his fellow workers become the family he didn't expect to find. United by desperation and circumstance, and existing on the fringes of society, together they bear witness to each other's survival.

This is an unforgettable story of unexpected friendship and how far we would go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

''A poetic, dramatic and vivid story. It has an epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality'' COLM TÓIBÍN

**''Tender and moving'' REBECCA SOLNIT

''A masterwork'' BRYAN WASHINGTON**