A masterful story of friendship and how much we're willing to risk to possess one of life's most treasured mercies- a second chance 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 'A poetic, dramatic and vivid story. It has an epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality' COLM T IB N One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, 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. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong's writing - formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness - are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies- a second chance. 'Tender and moving' REBECCA SOLNIT 'A masterwork' BRYAN WASHINGTON

Details

ISBN13: 9781787335417
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 416
Edition:
Publication Date: 13 May 2025
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.2(H)x15.2(L)x3.2(W)507
Weight (gm): 507

Author Biography

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.

Reviews

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 Tóibín
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 Solnit
A masterwork -- Bryan Washington
Sad, 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* *
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 *
Exquisite… Life at the margins of modern America has rarely felt so vivid * Mail on Sunday *
Depicts the emotions of its protagonists with a sensitivity and lusciousness… contains moments of almost unbearable poignancy * Guardian *
Praise for Ocean Vuong * On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous *