Why do we still laugh when times are hard? With Ocean Vuong
Ask Penguin
Penguin Books UK
4.1 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm looking for a novel that reads like poetry - where should I start? Can you recommend a queer love story with a happy conclusion? What are the best books that explore small-town life? We put your book dilemmas to bestselling author Ocean Vuong and Penguin Editor and award-winning poet Sarah Howe.
Joining Rhianna this week is Ocean Vuong, whose latest book The Emperor of Gladness has been dubbed the first 'millennial Great American Novel' – but what does that really mean, and which classic American novels have inspired him? The author and poet also reflects on the themes and inspirations behind the book, from small-town Connecticut to intergenerational friendships.
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Ocean Vuong is an award-winning poet, essayist and novelist. He is the winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize for his poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, and his debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was a literary sensation, going on to sell more than a million copies. Amongst many other accolades, he was a recipient of the MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ in 2019 and The Whiting Award in 2016.
The Emperor of Gladness, Vuong’s latest novel, explores themes of chosen family and the ways in which our lives can be changed by the most unexpected people.
Sarah Howe is Poetry Editor for Chatto & Windus an imprint of Penguin as well as an award-winning author. Sarah’s first collection, Loop of Jade won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2015, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award the same year. Her follow-up collection, Foretokens, continues to explore ideas and complications of belonging, identity and inheritance.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Rihanna Dillon. Welcome to Ask Penguin, the podcast all about books and the people that write and publish them. Every episode we sit down with authors and our penguin colleagues to hear |
| 0:22.6 | all about what they're working on, what they're reading and what inspires them, and you might just |
| 0:28.0 | get a little book recommendation or two as well. Joining me today is award-winning poet, essayist and |
| 0:34.2 | novelist Ocean Vong. Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for his collection, |
| 0:39.2 | Night Sky with Exit Wounds, his debut novel, On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous, was a literary sensation, |
| 0:46.6 | going on to sell more than a million copies. Amongst many other accolades, he's the recipient |
| 0:52.6 | of a MacArthur Genius Grant and the Whiting Award. |
| 0:57.2 | The Emperor of Gladness is his beautiful new novel exploring themes of chosen family |
| 1:02.7 | and the ways in which our lives can be changed by the most unexpected people. |
| 1:07.8 | Set in the fictional, fading, post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, |
| 1:12.9 | the story opens with 19-year-old high, standing on a railway bridge ready to jump, |
| 1:18.2 | when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Groschina, an elderly woman, |
| 1:23.5 | who is, he soon realizes, succumbing to dementia. Over the course of a year, the pair develop a life-changing bond. |
| 1:31.5 | Ocean, welcome to Ask Penguin. |
| 1:34.1 | Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:35.4 | Glad to be here. |
| 1:36.0 | Thank you so much for being here. |
| 1:37.7 | There is so much to get into. |
| 1:39.5 | But let's start with the novels setting. |
| 1:42.0 | So both geographically and temporally. So we're in 2009, quite a particular |
| 1:47.0 | moment and place in modern America. You were also around the same age as 19 year old high in 2009. |
| 1:53.3 | What was it about this particular year, time, place that you wanted to lean into and how does |
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