This message comes from Scholastic with the new novel El Nino, an entrancing adventure from

beloved and award-winning author of Esperanza Rising, Pam Munoz Ryan. Jason Reynolds calls it a

brilliant amalgamation of myth, nature, sport, and loss. I've never read anything like it. El Nino

is available wherever books are sold.

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and today a conversation with writer and poet Ocean Vong.

His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is an exploration of working-class life and the quiet joys and devastations of caregiving and survival.

It's set in the fictional post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, and follows a 19-year-old Vietnamese American named

High, who contemplates taking his own life before meeting an 82-year-old widow with dementia,

who persuades him to step back from the ledge and ultimately become

her caregiver. Bong is the author of the best-selling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

In the poetry collection, Time is a mother. He's received a MacArthur Genius Grant and has become

one of the most celebrated literary authors of his generation.

The conversation you're about to hear is in two parts.

First, the two of us in studio in Los Angeles.

And then later that night, we spoke again in front of an audience of nearly a thousand

at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center

in partnership with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.

Here's our conversation.

Ocean Bong, welcome back to fresh air.

Thank you so much, Tanya. It's a pleasure to be here.

You were nervous about this next book coming out, and I wonder why.

I imagine every author is nervous because you put so much care and work into something.

...