Ocean Vuong

Vietnamese American poet, essayist and novelist · United States · On the map · Writers · Born 1988 · age 38

Ocean Vuong is an American poet, essayist, novelist and photographer. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019. He received a MacArthur Fellowship the same year.

Ocean Vuong is read about 761 times a day, in 21 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 8 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 108 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2022“When I really assess Western culture in how it grapples with other bodies and other ecologies of thinking, at the end of the day, my response is: please catch up.”In their wordsMarch 2022On how Western culture fails to realize the interconnectedness of metaphors in “INTERVIEW WITH OCEAN VUONG” in The White Review (March 2022)Read the whole statement

“We’re talking about a claim to storytelling. We are taught that a valid or useful education is one in medicine, science, bioengineering.”In their wordsMarch 2022On the Western idea of claiming storytelling in “INTERVIEW WITH OCEAN VUONG” in The White Review (March 2022)Read the whole statement

“The world can misread us, and they will, and they have, and they won’t stop. But we do not have to misread ourselves.”In their wordsMarch 2022On the dilemma of being Asian American in “INTERVIEW WITH OCEAN VUONG” in The White Review (March 2022)Read the whole statement

“...you realize that grief is perhaps the last and final translation of love. And I think, you know, this is the last act of loving someone. And you realize that it will never end.”In their wordsOn grief in “Poet Ocean Vuong sifts through the aftershock of grief in 'Time Is a Mother'” in NPR (2022 Apr 5)Read the whole statement

2019“This book is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a coming-of-art.”In their wordsOn his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous in “Survival as a Creative Force: An Interview with Ocean Vuong” in The Paris Review (2019 JunRead the whole statement

MacArthur Fellows ProgramAward2016Whiting AwardsAward2013Chad Walsh Poetry PrizeAward1988Born14 October 1988

Also in Deutsch

Media & music

Photos 2

Reading at the Library of Congress, 2015

In their own words 4

Ocean Vuong

4 statements, newest first

The stories, at first, were folklore. My grandmother would tell a ghost story, then she would say: oh, that was after the napalm.
On his childhood and the stories told by the women that surrounded him in “Ocean Vuong: ‘As a child I would ask: What’s napalm?’” in The, Own words
I think that might not have been enough, were it not for me being my family ’s only hope. Because they were also dying, in a different way: financially, mentally.
On being surrounded by friends taken by the opioid epidemic and his quest to be the breadwinner for his family in “Ocean Vuong: ‘As a child, Own words
The incredible thing that I can never quite understand was how they were able to kick them all out.
On his female family members having the strength to end their relationships despite being in a new country in “Ocean Vuong: ‘As a child I, Own words

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Awards

MacArthur Fellows Program2019

Whiting Awards2016

Chad Walsh Poetry Prize2013

Kundiman Fellowship

T. S. Eliot Prize

About this person

He is the recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Country

United States