Sacrifice in the Name of Love

In his novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong writes about people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. Nicole Dennis-Benn‘s Patsy is a prismatic depiction of immigration and womanhood, and the lasting threads of love stretching across years and oceans. Both novels follow characters who are struggling to find their place, and the sacrifices they make in the name of love.

This event is part of The PEN America Immigration Track at the 2019 Decatur Book Festival. Free and open to the public, the annual Decatur Book Festival takes place in more than a dozen venues throughout downtown Decatur. To learn more, click here.

Nicole Dennis-Benn is the author of Here Comes the Sun, a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she teaches at Princeton and lives with her wife in Brooklyn.

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.