Ocean Vuong, author of the New York Times-bestseller “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” is the final speaker in this year’s Gifford Author Series.
He will speak on May 17 at the Civic Center’s Crouse-Hinds Theater in Syracuse.
His award-winning novel – a letter from a son to his mother, who is illiterate – deals with the immigrant experience, the aftermath of war and the importance of language.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut and now lives in Northampton, Massachusetts – where he serves as an assistant professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Vuong’s work encompasses poetry, essay and fiction. His first poetry collection, “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” won the T.S. Eliot Prize. Numerous awards followed, culminating in a MacArthur Fellowship in 2019.
In an interview with The Paris Review, Vuong, 33, describes writing as a way to “parse out who we are, what made us, where we are going - all of which are means toward self-knowledge… that’s what a novel is, at its core, one person trying to know themselves so thoroughly that they realize…it was the times they lived in, the people they touched and learned from, that made them real.”
About his main characters, he explains, “Maybe all of life is an experiment… Just because we use words like son and mother does not mean that love and forgiveness are a given…how do people who hurt each other find ways to protect themselves while attempting to love and, ultimately, to heal?”
Vuong’s work has been featured in The Atlantic, Harpers, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Village Voice and the American Poetry Review. In 2016, he was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as a “Leading Global Thinker,” alongside Hillary Clinton and Justin Trudeau.
He was also named an “Essential Asian American Writer” by Buzzfeed Books and has been profiled by NPR’s “All Things Considered,” PBS’s NewsHour and The New Yorker.
Presented by the Friends of the Central Library, the Gifford Author Series is the largest library-related lecture series in the country. Now in its 27th season, it has brought over 150 world-famous authors to Syracuse to entertain, inform and inspire Central New York audiences; and raise money for the Central Library, the hub of the Onondaga County Public Library.
For more information on Ocean Vuong and Friends of the Central Library, visit the group’s webiste.
Details
What: Ocean Vuong, author of the New York Times-bestseller “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” will speak.
When: 7:30 p.m., May 17
Where: Crouse-Hinds Theater, John H. Mulroy Civic Center, 421 Montgomery St., Syracuse
Ticket info: Tickets are available at the Solvay Bank Box Office at the Oncenter or online at Ticketmaster.com. Groups of 10+ qualify for 20% off regular ticket prices.
Student tickets for individual lectures are available for $10 with a valid student ID.
For more information on group or student tickets, contact the Solvay Bank Box Office at the Oncenter, 315-435-2121 or 315-435-8006, Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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