2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction (longlist)
2026 Dublin Literary Award (shortlist)
*A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2026*
College dropout Hai doesn’t know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life.
‘HEARTBREAKING’ Guardian
‘BEAUTIFUL’ Oprah Winfrey
‘DRAMATIC AND VIVID’ Colm Tóibín
One late summer evening in the town of East Gladness, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow.
From this moment, his second chance begins. Over the course of the year, Hai’s story takes new and unexpected turns, as his life-altering bond with Grazina transforms his relationship to the community, his family and, most powerfully of all, to himself.
READERS LOVE THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS:
’Read it slowly. Let it wreck you. Then read it again’
’I feel like I lost part of my soul to this book’
’I would give it 6 stars if I could’
’Sad and funny, devastating and quietly celebratory’
’A masterwork of compassion and complexity’
‘An ode to the little acts of kindness that help us heal’ Harper’s Bazaar
‘Beautiful writing’ Madonna
‘His most vivid, ambitious work yet’ Dazed
‘Incredible’ Björk
‘The first millennial Great American Novel’ ArtReview
Genre: Literary Fiction
College dropout Hai doesn’t know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life.
‘HEARTBREAKING’ Guardian
‘BEAUTIFUL’ Oprah Winfrey
‘DRAMATIC AND VIVID’ Colm Tóibín
One late summer evening in the town of East Gladness, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow.
From this moment, his second chance begins. Over the course of the year, Hai’s story takes new and unexpected turns, as his life-altering bond with Grazina transforms his relationship to the community, his family and, most powerfully of all, to himself.
READERS LOVE THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS:
’Read it slowly. Let it wreck you. Then read it again’
’I feel like I lost part of my soul to this book’
’I would give it 6 stars if I could’
’Sad and funny, devastating and quietly celebratory’
’A masterwork of compassion and complexity’
‘An ode to the little acts of kindness that help us heal’ Harper’s Bazaar
‘Beautiful writing’ Madonna
‘His most vivid, ambitious work yet’ Dazed
‘Incredible’ Björk
‘The first millennial Great American Novel’ ArtReview
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"The Emperor of Gladness is a poetic, dramatic and vivid story. It has an epic sweep but it also handles intimacy and love with delicacy and deep originality. Its two main characters - the young Hai, so smart and troubled and ready for the world, and Grazina, who carries the weight of history as both burden and rare wisdom - are taken from the margins of American life by Ocean Vuong and, by dint of great sympathy and imaginative genius, placed at the very center of our world." - Colm Tóibín
"A masterwork." - Bryan Washington
"A masterwork." - Bryan Washington
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