Photo: slowking4 / CC BY-SA 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Ocean Vuong is the kind of writer who reminds me why language still matters. Born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1988 and raised in the United States, he carries the Vietnamese American immigrant experience into poetry and prose that feels almost unbearably precise. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, landed the same year he received a MacArthur Grant, and the recognition didn't stop there: the Whiting Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and more. What moves me is that he came up through Brooklyn College, not some gilded path, and turned a hard origin into work of real tenderness. I genuinely admire him.
Overview
Ocean Vuong (born Vương Quốc Vinh, Vietnamese: [vɨəŋ˧ kuək˧˥ viɲ˧]; born 1988) is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019. He received a MacArthur Grant the same year. He is the recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T. S.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Ocean Vuong
- Name (Japanese)
- オーシャン・ヴオン
- Reading
- おーしゃん・ゔおん
- Born
- October 14, 1988 (age 37)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Libra / Dragon
- Origin
- Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- poet / writer / essayist / university teacher
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Glastonbury High School
- University
- Brooklyn College
Awards & achievements
- 2016 Whiting Awards
- Kundiman Fellowship
- T. S. Eliot Prize
- 2019 MacArthur Fellows Program
- 2013 Chad Walsh Poetry Prize
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous | — |
6. Links
Poet — see all → · Writer — see all → · More people from Vietnam →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.