'On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous' Navigates The Language Of Belonging

Ocean Vuong dazzled the literary world with his first collection of
poetry. His debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous , was one
of the most anticipated of the year. Written in the form of a
letter from a character named Little Dog to his illiterate mother,
the novel charts Little Dog’s fraught path from childhood into
adulthood and reckons with violence, loss and belonging. Severely
bullied by his classmates and physically abused by his mother,
whose trauma from life in Vietnam still weighs heavily on the
family, Little Dog finds temporary refuge in drugs, a teenaged love
affair and in the dyamic power of language itself.