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Books

Ocean Vuong’s novel is coming to the big screen

Our favourite production company A24, behind Everything Everywhere All at Once, Uncut Gems, Midsommar, Lady Bird, and Moonlight, is bringing Ocean Vuong’s critically acclaimed debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous to the big screen. Ocean Vuong has shared a story on his Instagram today, announcing that the script is done. 

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous follows the story of a young Vietnamese American nicknamed Little Dog, who tries to communicate with his illiterate mother Hong through a series of letters.

oceon vuong
Credit: Jon Crispin

The story connects the past to the present with a series of documents, that shed light on the lives of Little Dog’s grandmother Lan, who had escaped an arranged marriage during the Vietnam War, and Hong, his mother who left school at the age of five due to the war and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The family moves to Connecticut, where they can barely speak English, and Little Dog is mistreated by his mother for being gay.

Published in 2019, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous debuted at No. 6 on the New York Times’s best-seller list and was named one of the top 10 books of 2019 by the Washington Post.

Bing Liu, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Minding the Gap, is set to adapt the novel to screen.

 

Given that A24 can do no wrong, and Voung is a master storyteller, we eagerly await news of the film’s release.