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Ocean Vuong Is Still Learning | The New Yorker

newyorker.com · 4,939 words · saved by 1 readers

The author of “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” and the new poetry collection “Time Is a Mother” has won a MacArthur “genius” grant, yet keeps his white-belt approach to writing.

Save this story Save this story Ocean Vuong was two when he immigrated with his family to the United States from Vietnam. They settled in Hartford, Connecticut, with seven relatives sharing a one-bedroom apartment. At the time, their lives were defined by survival. His father left one day and never came back. His mother worked long hours at a nail salon. Vuong was the first member of the family to learn to read and write proficiently. He was eleven. As a teen-ager, witness to the opioid abuse and casual hopelessness common in post-industrial New England, Vuong realized that he needed to leave

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