** Sunday Times Bestseller **
Brilliant, heartbreaking and highly original, Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.
'A marvel' Marlon James
This 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. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.
'A masterpiece' Max Porter
'Luminous, shattering, urgent, necessary' Celeste Ng
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Imprint: Vintage Digital
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Published: 20/06/2019
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ISBN: 9781473564473
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Length: 256 Pages
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RRP: £8.99
Reviews
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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
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A stunning, beautiful book... His writing is phenomenal... Simply brilliant.
BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review
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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
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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
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Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous confirms him as a master of inventive language that has its roots in the spoken word but reaches shimmering heights of lyricism, too.
Joseph O'Connor, Sunday Independent *Books of the Year*
