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Sign up todayThe Emperor of Gladness: Oprah's Book Club
A Novel
Narrator
James Aaron Oh
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Length
14 hours 5 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“My heart breaks open with each work by Ocean Vuong, but this time as I stitch it back up, my heart will be twice as big, even more whole. Because of his gorgeous new novel about small tender lives and the big messy love of found families, my heart now has space for so many more people. Giving us Hai, and Grazina who he cares for, and the ragtag crew at HomeMarket where he works, Vuong grapples with big themes while offering grace, visibility, and humanity. All his works are gifts, and this is his greatest yet.”
— Melinda • Bookshop Santa Cruz
Bookseller recommendation
“Do not miss this book! It's a remarkable story crafted in beautiful prose by a gifted, highly original author. You'll care deeply about his unique characters and their journey of life. The plot is full of surprises, warmth, pathos and some humor. "Emperor" is one of my very top picks of 2025 and likely to win top awards. ”
— Patience • Underground Books
Bookseller recommendation
“If you read only one page of The Emperor of Gladness, you will walk away with gratitude for being able to read one of the greatest writers of our time. But, for sure you will read the entire book as you become engrossed in the quiet but powerful story of Hai and Grazina, two lost souls grappling with their seemingly dead-end existence who find more purpose when they find each other. I savored every page, and I could feel my empathy growing with each sentence. This is what novels are all about. ”
— Casey • Bookshop Santa Cruz
Bookseller recommendation
“A story about the everyday magic of knowing people, and finding purpose in the mundane. More than just your usual coming of age story, The Emperor of Gladness is life and death and laughter all rolled up into one beautiful book.”
— Kelsie • Red Balloon Bookshop
Oprah’s Book Club Pick • Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive
“Stunning . . . A heartfelt and powerful examination of those living on the fringes of society, and the unique challenges they face to survive and thrive.” —Oprah Winfrey
“Magnificent . . . In writing this book, Vuong may have joined the ranks of an elite few great novelists.” —Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times
The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…
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.
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 New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. 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.
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Audiobook details
Author:
Ocean Vuong
Narrator:
James Aaron Oh
ISBN:
9798217071692
Length:
14 hours 5 minutes
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Publication date:
May 13, 2025
Edition:
Unabridged
Libro.fm rank:
#22 Overall
Genre rank:
#2 in LGBTQIA+ Fiction
Reviews
“Ocean Vuong is uniquely talented at capturing the tender and wrought feelings of loss. His novels are live wires of emotion, crackling at each page with possibility. The Emperor of Gladness is no different.” —Chicago Review of Books“Poet Vuong follows up his acclaimed first novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, with a searching and beautiful 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 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)
“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
“A masterwork.” —Bryan Washington, author of Palaver and Family Meal Expand reviews
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