Ocean Vuong, on Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (USA: Penguin Press, 2019)

Ocean Vuong, on Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (USA: Penguin Press, 2019)

Book Review

Set in New York, the book is filled with the experiences of a boy from Vietnam as he struggles with both his identity as well as sexuality. Even as everyone interprets a work of literature in their own way, I see a sense of urgency in the tone often taken by the author. There is an attempt to establish that all those living in one house may be dealing with more than one hierarchy in a neighborhood, a city, a country. What is unsettling is the impact of the perceptions of those around on the narrator and his family, the lack of acceptance for anything that looks different from the rest is exhausting and attacks the spirit of those who are already suffering from financial disparity as well as violence within a household.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4318677

Lakhani, Kavya

Liberal Studies; Vol. 5 No. 1 (2020): January–June 2020; 157-159

2688-9374

2455-9857

Pandit Deendayal Energy University

2020-06-30

Copyright (c) 2020 Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

application/pdf

eng

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Peer-reviewed Article