Ocean Vuong returns with The Emperor of Gladness, a novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
Literary LitStackers, listen up! Another beauty is in pre-sale now. Penguin Publishing Group invites readers on a journey into The Emperor of Gladness, a new novel by Ocean Vuong. Early indications suggest a work of profound literary exploration. Though details remain light, the publisher’s evocative description and the cover art hint at a reading experience sure to resonate with discerning readers. Here is advance reader praise on the book. Consider The Emperor of Gladness a literary must own and pre-order today.
In This Spotlight On The Emperor of Gladness
About The Emperor of Gladness
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 transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on 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 Ocean 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.
Praise for The Emperor of Gladness
“The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. Epic in its sweep, the novel also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Hai and Grazina 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, author of Long Island and Brooklyn
“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, author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost and Recollections of My Nonexistence
“[The Emperor of Gladness is a] …masterwork.”—Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal
“Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful [The Emperor of Gladness a]…story of a troubled young man. Vuong’s scenes are vivid, and the pitch-perfect dialogue cuts like a knife . . . This downbeat tale soars to astonishing heights.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“[E]xploring themes of war and labor—their wretchedness, their dignity—Vuong’s epic-feeling novel [The Emperor of Gladness] is a determined portrait of community, caretaking, and characters who, if they only have each other, have quite a lot.”—Booklist (starred review)
“[A]mbitious . . . The references to Slaughterhouse-Five and The Brothers Karamazov underscore Vuong’s interest in exploring war and morality, but this is remarkable as a novel that tries to look at those themes outside of conventional realism or combat porn . . . A sui generis take on the surprising and cruel ways violence is passed on across generations.”—Kirkus (starred review)
About Ocean Vuong, Author of The Emperor of Gladness
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 novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and The Emperor of Gladness. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he 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.
You can connect with Ocean Vuong on their website, and on Instagram.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780593831878
Pub date: 05/13/2025
Titles by Ocean Vuong
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