On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: Ocean Vuong

Vuong, Ocean

ISBN 10: 1787331504 / ISBN 13: 9781787331501

Published by Jonathan Cape, 2019

About this Item

Book Description: A mint first printing of the exclusive limited {only 750 copies} edition with sprayed pink edges in a mint unclipped dust wrapper. No 584/750 Unread gift condition, SIGNED and NUMBERED by Ocean Vuong to the title page. An outstanding copy of this acclaimed debut novel. BOXED DESPATCH.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1723390732776

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: Ocean Vuong
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1787331504
• ISBN 13: 9781787331501
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

**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

About the Author

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.