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Ocean Vuong was born in Saigon on 14 October 1988, came to the United States at the age of two and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, with a mother who spent some three decades working in factories and nail salons and does not read his books. His first full collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016), won the T.S. Eliot Prize for 2017 — the judges called it a book about “the aftermath of war and migration over three generations”. His first novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019), is a letter from a son, Little Dog, to a mother who cannot read it; Time Is a Mother (2022) followed, and in 2025 The Emperor of Gladness, about a nineteen-year-old who becomes the carer of an elderly Lithuanian refugee in a run-down Connecticut town. Readers come to him for the sentence that turns a bruise into an image, for the mother, and for the war that sits behind the family. The writers below share at least one of those: the Vietnam War and its refugees, a child writing to or about a parent, queer boyhood in a hard house, or a poet's attention brought to bear on grief.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Lyric fiction · War, family and queer coming of age · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Ocean Vuong, start with Kiese Laymon's Heavy, another book written to a mother. For the war and its refugees, read Viet Thanh Nguyen and Thi Bui. For the poems, Li-Young Lee is the elder he is most often set beside. And for a queer boy and the mother he cannot save, Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain.
10 authors like Ocean Vuong
Where to start if you loved Ocean Vuong
If you want the letter to a mother again, read Kiese Laymon.
Heavy: a son speaking to his mother about everything they never said.
If you want the war and the family that carried it, read Thi Bui.
The Best We Could Do, the refugee story told by a daughter, in pictures.
If you want the poems, read Li-Young Lee.
Rose, and the poem “Persimmons” first.
If you want Little Dog's tenderness in a longer novel, read Douglas Stuart.
Shuggie Bain: a soft boy, a mother he adores, and Glasgow in the 1980s.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Ocean Vuong
Who should I read if I love Ocean Vuong?
Start with Kiese Laymon's Heavy, a memoir addressed to his mother, and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain, about a queer boy and his alcoholic mother. For the Vietnam War and its refugees, read Viet Thanh Nguyen and Thi Bui. Among poets, Li-Young Lee and Kaveh Akbar are the closest.
What books are like On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous?
Kiese Laymon's Heavy (2018) shares its form, a book written to a mother. Justin Torres's We the Animals (2011) and Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain (2020) share its queer boyhood in a hard house. Thi Bui's The Best We Could Do (2017) tells a Vietnamese refugee family's story from the daughter's side.
Is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous autobiographical?
It is a novel, but it draws closely on Vuong's life: like Little Dog, he grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, with a mother who came from Vietnam, worked in nail salons and does not read his work. Vuong told NPR in 2019 that he wanted to “start with truth and end with art”.
Which poets are similar to Ocean Vuong?
Li-Young Lee is the elder poet he is most often compared with: both write the immigrant family through a parent. Kaveh Akbar, born in Tehran in 1989, writes about addiction, faith and the body and, like Vuong, moved from poetry to the novel. Justin Torres's prose is close to poetry too.
What is The Emperor of Gladness about?
Vuong's second novel (2025) follows Hai, a nineteen-year-old Vietnamese-American just out of rehab, who is talked down from a bridge by Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian refugee with dementia, and becomes her carer. It is set in the fictional town of East Gladness, Connecticut, and much of it takes place among his coworkers at a fast-food restaurant.
Are there other Vietnamese-American writers like Ocean Vuong?
Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Thi Bui, whose graphic memoir The Best We Could Do tells her family's escape by boat after 1975. Both write about the war and what it did to the families who came to America.
Which Ocean Vuong book should I read first?
Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016) if you are open to poetry, or On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019) if you would rather start with a novel. My guide to all six Ocean Vuong books in order covers every one of them.
Footnotes
- Ocean Vuong — Academy of American Poets
- Ocean Vuong wins T. S. Eliot Prize with ‘compellingly assured debut’ — T. S. Eliot Prize
- ‘Start With Truth And End With Art’: Poet Ocean Vuong On His Debut Novel — NPR
- ‘The Emperor of Gladness’ walks a tightrope between despair and hope — Christian Science Monitor
- Li-Young Lee — Academy of American Poets
- Princeton's Yiyun Li wins Pulitzer Prize for memoir — Princeton University
- UCLA's Justin Torres wins National Book Award for ‘Blackouts’ — UCLA
- The Best We Could Do — NEA Big Read
List last reviewed 15 October 2026.
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