And what I realize is they were trying to protect me. You know, you’ve got to talk it out. I was inspired by Baldwin’s “Go Tell It To The Mountain.” Baldwin said he had to write that book in order to write anything else and it made perfect sense to me because what he was doing was saying that the (INAUDIBLE) that raised him, a black family in Harlem, similar to a Vietnamese family in Hartford for myself, is something worthy and of the dignity and the power of literature. What does he think of your work? And I have to ask you, what do you think about that? Of course. But I don’t write with rage. You know, the women in my family suffered from war. Robert Reich examines PG&E’s role in the California fires. NPR Books In The Lines Of Ocean Vuong, Echoes Of His Family's Past In Vietnam. And I was so invisible, she forgot about me. We can honor both perspectives. He’s trying to understand this world that he’s been kind of dropped into. Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong's words are mighty, teasing and overpowering in his autobiographical novel, written as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother. When it comes to the musical prodigy, there’s a great violinist, a great pianist, but always in service of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, euro centric music. MARTIN: Really? And I think the opportunity there, although it’s very fraught, is that within a mixed race family that comes out of war, there’s no way to keep it simple. Something to create a space for yourself? What can I do? So many of your senses are beautiful.

I have seen workers you included, ma, apologize dozens of times throughout a 45-minute manicure hoping to gain warm traction that would lead to the ultimate goal. MARTIN: And forgive me, you’re saying your family’s illiterate in both Vietnamese and English? So at its best to be an Asian-American artist of talent is to be merely a fine tune instrument in service of somebody else’s name then. Again and again, I watched as manicures bowed over a hand or foot of a client, some young as 7, say I’m sorry. And I think we don’t have to solve that. VUONG: It’s a challenging relationship. A recipient of a 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. You know, we don’t ask to — it’s rare and challenging when the elephant in the room is always a war that costs four plus million lives. Their own agency. They never ask for their country to be bombed. VUONG: I think writing helped me understand that although you can technically be a victim, you can be a victim of war. And I think he wrote that to prove to himself, America, his community, that this could be in the center. Ocean Vuong is the author of The New York Times bestselling novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, out from Penguin Press (2019) and forthcoming in 30 languages. VUONG: I’m angry.

But my teacher thought I plagiarized because I was a poor student. And I think when I see them, they’re more invested in the present. I think about some of the dynamics within your own family. Because he can’t be a man, if he’s not a man, he’s not human under American standards. A Peabody Award-winning public radio show and podcast. In the same way Harlem gave Baldwin his. The poison of war entered them.

MICHEL MARTIN, AMERICAN JOURNALIST: Ocean Vuong, thank you so much for talking with us. My family is illiterate and it took me a long time age 10, 11 to really start reading fluently. I’m sorry. His debut novel released this year, “On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” spent six weeks on the New York Times’ best seller list. They never asked to have terrible husbands who abuse them.

And I want to start with there and show then show the world how they’re beautiful. What can I do now?

It’s an amicable one. Beneath you. He is the author of the poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won the T.S. I would sneak out of recess, stay in the library to listen to tapes of famous speeches. Ocean Vuong is an award-winning Vietnamese-American writer born in Ho Chi Minh city and the grandson of a U.S. soldier. The wounds are understood, and sometimes language can’t even hash them all out. These people are beautiful.

If you don’t mind my saying that there are many ways that your mother treats you that are very difficult to read. When he was 2 years old, Ocean Vuong's family immigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. He tells NPR's Michel Martin that he didn't learn to read English … You can be a victim of domestic violence, child abuse, but whether you live in victimhood or not, is up to you. You can use your imagination to tend to yourself and your communities to empower them. OCEAN VUONG, AMERICAN POET: Thank you, Michel.

But it was not different than what my grandmother would tell at home. And it was so powerful to me. “I was bor… In the nail salon, one’s definition of sorry is deranged into a new word entirely.

If you stay out of the limelight, you can get by, do your work, make a living quietly.

And that’s the greatest paradox between first and second generation because the second generation wants to be known. I’ve never been put in time-out. Ocean Vuong is an assistant professor of English in the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Ocean Vuong is an award-winning Vietnamese-American writer born in Ho Chi Minh city and the grandson of a U.S. soldier. VUONG: I think I feel it, but I don’t act out of it. I was inspired by — I had good elders in literature. VUONG: It was all warnings. And I think when it comes to Asian-American talent in this country, a lot of us are unfathomable. MARTIN: What’s your relationship with your mother now? It’s a rough city, but we were immigrants from war, we were refugees so violence was something everybody understood. I think one thing living with elders with PTSD, living in a black and brown community where violence was pervasive, where police brutality was pervasive, I saw that anger was the death of creativity and innovation. MARTIN: Here’s a passage, I think, we both agree we would like to hear you. Unexplained warnings and my warning was, don’t draw attention to yourself. MARTIN: Do you remember though when you developed that yearning to be seen, to be known? Teacher put me in time-out. MARTIN: Are you angry about the way you were treated as a child? When you think about the two stereotypes of Asian-American talent, one, the math whiz. VUONG: Hartford, Connecticut. You respect what I did. Burnings book. It no longer merely apologizes, but insist reminds I’m here, right here. My — I couldn’t even say the word “the” well. MARTIN: Right away. MARTIN: Do you remember when you started thinking about writing or something making art? And he in a way crumbles from it. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. We’re here. MARTIN: “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” before I let you go, tell me about the title. Cynthia Erivo and Leslie Odom, Jr. discuss their roles in the new film “Harriet.” Ocean Vuong sits down with Michel Martin to discuss race, sexuality and his new novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.”. When it comes to the math whiz, it’s genetic. But it was — it was not encouraged. So he thought, oh, this ESL student must have clearly snatched this from somewhere else and he dumped my desk out and he says, you know, where did this come from? MARTIN: Ocean Vuong, thank you so much for talking with us. Vuong and his family were forced to immigrate to the United States when he was 2 years old. NPR coverage of Ocean Vuong: News, author interviews, critics' picks and more. He’s trying to understand his gender identity, he’s trying to understand his sexual identity. I can’t. + the Anderson Family Fund, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III, Candace King Weir, the Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, the Leila and Mickey Straus Family Foundation, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Charles Rosenblum, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams and The JPB Foundation. Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” spent six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award; and a novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. You’ve got to get a therapist. You know, I’m sitting in the corner and then she looked up, she was eating lunch. MARTIN: Do you have any memories of coming here in those early years? To being unfathomable. VUONG: I think for me, I dared to call poor black and brown and yellow bodies gorgeous.

MARTIN: You were a baby when you came here, right?

How does that factor into this story? That’s the great western myth. What I learned from these refugee women is that you don’t have to talk it out. VUONG: The most common English word spoken in the nail salon was sorry. He was a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. That’s a fact. VUONG: Thank you. It was the one refrain for what it meant to work in the service of beauty. My grandma was bad. And I think a lot of folks of color get this from their elders. And I like to see it as this is our species wide endeavor is how do we change what happened to us into how we live better has the great, great conundrum. It felt like here’s my chance to say it out the gate. And in fact, he’s better off in his queerness than this American boy who is supposed to have everything, including ultimate freedom. It’s a beautiful title. Read 18 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Ocean Vuong on Race, Sexuality and His New Novel, Cynthia Erivo & Leslie Odom, Jr. on Their Roles in “Harriet”, Robert Reich Examines PG&E’s Role in the California Fires, Norman Ornstein on the Value of the Impeachment Inquiry. I’m at my best when I say I’m angry about this, but I need to know why you’re doing it to me. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, we move to one of the most compelling and magnetic literary talents of recent times. I moved through history and observations like a spiral. We can’t change what happens to us. And so we sought out the pleasure and the community really took us in. I’ve never been so respected to the point of being feared. Semi-autobiographical, it is written in the form of a letter from a young Vietnamese-American to his illiterate mother. You thought it was black and Latino. The first sentence in the book is the title.