Ocean  Vuong

"Brilliant, heartbreaking, 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 epicenter 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"--

A Novel

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Winner of the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize Winner of the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection A Guardian / Daily Telegraph Book of the Year PBS Summer Recommendation An extraordinary debut from a young Vietnamese American, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other. Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language, Vuong writes about the most profound subjects – love and loss, conflict, grief, memory and desire – and attends to them all with lines that feel newly-minted, graceful in their cadences, passionate and hungry in their tender, close attention: ‘...the chief of police/facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola./A palm-sized photo of his father soaking/beside his left ear.’ This is an unusual, important book: both gentle and visceral, vulnerable and assured, and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years. ‘These are poems of exquisite beauty, unashamed of romance, and undaunted by looking directly into the horrors of war, the silences of history. One of the most important debut collections for a generation.’ Andrew McMillan

Night Sky with Exit Wounds

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother's death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, Vuong's poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.

The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once.

Time Is a Mother

Poetry. Asian American Studies. LGBT Studies. The poems of BURNINGS explore refugee culture, be the speaker a literal refugee from a torn homeland, or a refugee from his own skin, burning with the heat of awakening eroticism. In this world, we're all refugees from something. As two-time National Slam Champion Roger Bonair-Agard says: "Ocean manages to imbue the desperation of his being alive—with a savage beauty. It is not just that Ocean can render pain as a kind of loveliness, but that his poetic line will not let you forget the hurt or the garish brilliance of your triumph; will not let you look away. These poems shatter us detail by detail because Ocean leaves nothing unturned, because every lived thing in his poems demands to be fed by you; to nourish you in turn. You will not leave these poems dissatisfied. They will fill you utterly."

Burnings

Yeryüzünde bir an için muhteşemiz

This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born -- a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam -- and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known.

En La Tierra Somos Fugazmente Grandiosos

Brevemente risplendiamo sulla terra

Auf Erden sind wir kurz grandios

Na Terra Somos Brevemente Magníficos

Een Amerikaan van Vietnamese afkomst schrijft in briefvorm aan zijn moeder, die niet kan lezen, hoe moeilijk hij zijn weg vond in de VS.

Op aarde schitteren we even

"Você é uma mãe, Mãe. Você também é um monstro. Mas eu também sou – e é por isso que eu não posso me afastar de você." Sobre a Terra Somos Belos por um Instante é uma carta de um filho para uma mãe que não sabe ler. Escrita quando o narrador, Cachorrinho, está perto dos trinta anos, a carta traz à luz uma história de família que começou antes de ele nascer – uma história cujo epicentro tem suas raízes no Vietnã e que chega a Hartford, no Connecticut – e que serve como porta de entrada para partes da vida dele que a mãe jamais conheceu, tudo levando a uma inesquecível revelação. Testemunho do amor angustiado, porém inegável, entre uma mãe solteira e seu filho, Sobre a Terra Somos Belos um Instante é também uma exploração brutalmente honesta de raça, classe e masculinidade. Fazendo perguntas centrais para o momento americano, imerso no vício, na violência e no trauma, mas sustentado pela ternura e pela compaixão, é um livro sobre o poder de se contar a própria história, e sobre o silêncio aniquilador de não ser ouvido. Com urgência e beleza atordoantes, Ocean Vuong escreve sobre pessoas que se veem entre mundos díspares, questionando como podemos curar e resgatar uns aos outros sem abandonar quem somos. A pergunta sobre como sobreviver, e sobre como fazer disso uma espécie de alegria, é o combustível desse retrato perturbador de uma família, de um primeiro amor, e do poder redentor de contar histórias.

Sobre a terra somos belos por um instante

Cielo notturno con fori d'uscita. Testo inglese a fronte

Un bref instant de splendeur se présente sous la forme d'une lettre qu'un fils adresse à sa mère qui ne la lira jamais. Fille d'un soldat américain et d'une paysanne vietnamienne, elle est analphabète, parle à peine anglais et travaille dans un salon de manucure aux Etats-Unis. Elle est le pur produit d'une guerre oubliée. Son fils, dont la peau est trop claire pour un Vietnamien mais pas assez pour un Américain, entreprend de retracer leur histoire familiale : la schizophrénie de sa grand-mère traumatisée par les bombes ennemies au Vietnam, les poings durs de sa mère contre son corps d'enfant, son premier amour marqué d'un sceau funeste, sa découverte du désir, de son homosexualité et du pouvoir rédempteur de l'écriture. Ce premier roman, écrit dans une langue d'une beauté grandiose, explore avec une urgence et une grâce stupéfiantes les questions de race, de classe et de masculinité. Ocean Vuong signe une plongée dans les eaux troubles de la violence, du déracinement et de l'addiction, que la tendresse et la compassion viennent toujours adroitement contrebalancer. Un livre d'une justesse bouleversante sur la capacité des mots à panser les plaies ouvertes depuis des générations.

roman

Un bref instant de splendeur

Gece Gögünde Cikis Yaralari

Wspaniali jesteśmy tylko przez chwilę

Lyhyt maallinen loistomme

Vi er kortvarigt smukke her på jorden

"Um Vietnã dilacerado pela guerra e pelo comunismo; Nova York — o símbolo da América — ferida pela violência e pela intolerância; a homossexualidade como condição de diversidade e marginalização. Trinta e cinco composições poéticas, inspiradas na experiência desse jovem autor vietnamita que emigrou para os Estados Unidos ainda criança. Céu noturno crivado de balas é animado por uma nova linguagem, de fusão e criação, na qual o amor pelo classicismo — o mito, a estética, a harmonia, a fé na ordem e na simetria — funde-se com a busca por novas formas, sempre fiéis ao verso livre e a um diálogo, surpreendente e vital, entre a prosa e o lirismo."

Ocean Vuong

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