Ocean Vuong shares stories behind ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ – Gulf Today

Ocean Vuong shares stories behind ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ – Gulf Today

Vuong dedicated the book to his mother, Rose, who died of cancer at 51 last year, a few months after the book was published.. "It felt important to have my first book be something between two yellow lines," Vuong said, choking up as he spoke about his mother.. During the book club event, Times reporter Anh Do joined Vuong onstage to read a passage from his book and shared questions from others in the Vietnamese community who had read his novel.. "One of the greatest hopes as an artist is to create a town square where people get together and talk about this book and they talk about the questions and they bring their own life to it," he said.. "When you read a book “¦ you're choosing to privilege a center, a space somebody else made for you," he said. ". You can always turn away from the news that is meant to depress you and make you feel miserable and choose a book that you decide for yourself..