The Emperor of Gladness

Ocean Vuong returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One summer evening in the town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond.

The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which our lives are changed by the most unexpected of people. When Hai takes a job at a diner to support himself and Grazina, his fellow workers become the family he didn’t expect to find. United by desperation and circumstance, and existing on the fringes of society, together they bear witness to each other’s survival.

‘Some of the most beautiful writing I’ve experienced in my lifetime’ - Oprah Winfrey

'Perfectly tuned… May well be the first millennial Great American Novel’ - ArtReview

‘A fine-grained social panorama driven by the developing camaraderie of an ensemble cast bonded in precariousness and pain’ - Observer