Quote by Ocean Vuong: “Let me begin again in the language that is not my own.”

Writing or speaking in a language forced upon you by history is both a loss and a strange kind of power. You begin again — not from your own roots but from what has been given to you by circumstance. There is grief in that, and also a form of creative freedom.

Night Sky with Exit Wounds was published in 2017 as debates over immigration and cultural belonging intensified in the United States. Vuong, who arrived in the US as a refugee at age two, was navigating what it means to be a Vietnamese poet writing in English — the language of a country that had bombed his homeland.

Vietnamese-American poet and novelist whose debut poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2017. His debut novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous explores immigrant identity, queerness, and intergenerational trauma through a letter from a son to his illiterate mother. He teaches at New York University.