Emperor of Joy
 |
Description
Book Introduction
The most highly regarded poet and novelist in America today
Ocean Vuong's second novel, The Emperor of Joy
“A story about society and the marginalized.
“It is a dazzling tragedy and a sad comedy at the same time,” says Rebecca Solnit.
“A novel that deeply empathizes with the process of learning to care for oneself and others.”
(Time's 2025 Book of the Year)
★ Selected as a Book of the Year for 2025 by Time and Amazon
★ New York Times, Amazon Bestseller
★ Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction Finalist
Ocean Vuong, “the most highly regarded poet and novelist in America today” (The New York Times), has published his second novel, The Emperor of Joy, by Influential.
The youngest poet ever to win a TS
Eliot Award, he received attention, and his first novel, "On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated," which is an autobiographical narrative of a Vietnamese immigrant and queer person, became a New York Times bestseller and was nominated for the National Book Award.
《The Emperor of Joy》 is the work that was released six years later, and it became a bestseller immediately after publication and was selected as the 'Book of the Year' by various media outlets, attracting the hottest topic of 2025.
Set in the fictional town of East Gladness, the novel depicts the poignant friendship between Grazina, an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and Hai, a boy who attempted suicide.
Hai, who had been living on drugs and lies, begins to change little by little with the kindness of Grazina, who accepts him as someone who has nowhere to go and gives him a warm meal.
The eccentric but kind employees of 'Home Market', a workplace introduced by his cousin Sony, also become a strong support for Ha-i.
They are tightly connected and proud of their own lives, and they face the misfortune of one person together.
A strange home and family for the first time for a lonely immigrant boy who has always been alone.
In this newfound meaning, Hai decides to embrace the pleasant confusion.
The shattered American dream, the marginalized in declining neighborhoods, the youth wandering amidst longing for family and a yearning to belong to American society… Ocean Vuong captures these figures in poetic language, telling stories of individual pain and healing, and the restoration of family and community.
《The Emperor of Joy》, a narrative of empathy and human recovery, was selected by Oprah Winfrey's Book Club and became an instant bestseller upon its publication.
Hailed as “the first great American novel for millennials,” this work will allow readers to see the present and future of American literature.
The Korean edition of The Emperor of Joy includes a special preface by Ocean Vuong.
The author's gratitude to Korean writers who inspired him, such as Han Kang, Kim Hye-soon, and Cha Hak-kyung, and his brief reflections on the writing process reveal his anticipation and affection for the publication of the Korean edition.
Ocean Vuong's second novel, The Emperor of Joy
“A story about society and the marginalized.
“It is a dazzling tragedy and a sad comedy at the same time,” says Rebecca Solnit.
“A novel that deeply empathizes with the process of learning to care for oneself and others.”
(Time's 2025 Book of the Year)
★ Selected as a Book of the Year for 2025 by Time and Amazon
★ New York Times, Amazon Bestseller
★ Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction Finalist
Ocean Vuong, “the most highly regarded poet and novelist in America today” (The New York Times), has published his second novel, The Emperor of Joy, by Influential.
The youngest poet ever to win a TS
Eliot Award, he received attention, and his first novel, "On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated," which is an autobiographical narrative of a Vietnamese immigrant and queer person, became a New York Times bestseller and was nominated for the National Book Award.
《The Emperor of Joy》 is the work that was released six years later, and it became a bestseller immediately after publication and was selected as the 'Book of the Year' by various media outlets, attracting the hottest topic of 2025.
Set in the fictional town of East Gladness, the novel depicts the poignant friendship between Grazina, an elderly woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and Hai, a boy who attempted suicide.
Hai, who had been living on drugs and lies, begins to change little by little with the kindness of Grazina, who accepts him as someone who has nowhere to go and gives him a warm meal.
The eccentric but kind employees of 'Home Market', a workplace introduced by his cousin Sony, also become a strong support for Ha-i.
They are tightly connected and proud of their own lives, and they face the misfortune of one person together.
A strange home and family for the first time for a lonely immigrant boy who has always been alone.
In this newfound meaning, Hai decides to embrace the pleasant confusion.
The shattered American dream, the marginalized in declining neighborhoods, the youth wandering amidst longing for family and a yearning to belong to American society… Ocean Vuong captures these figures in poetic language, telling stories of individual pain and healing, and the restoration of family and community.
《The Emperor of Joy》, a narrative of empathy and human recovery, was selected by Oprah Winfrey's Book Club and became an instant bestseller upon its publication.
Hailed as “the first great American novel for millennials,” this work will allow readers to see the present and future of American literature.
The Korean edition of The Emperor of Joy includes a special preface by Ocean Vuong.
The author's gratitude to Korean writers who inspired him, such as Han Kang, Kim Hye-soon, and Cha Hak-kyung, and his brief reflections on the writing process reveal his anticipation and affection for the publication of the Korean edition.
- You can preview some of the book's contents.
Preview
index
Preface to the Korean edition
Emperor of Joy
Author's Note
Translator's Note
Emperor of Joy
Author's Note
Translator's Note
Detailed image
Into the book
Joy, if you take the wrong path while trying to find Gladness, you will end up here.
Because our town is called East Gladness.
The town of Gladness no longer exists.
It was renamed Millsap nearly a century ago in honor of Tony Millsap, a boy who lost his limbs in World War I and returned home a hero.
It's proof that in this country, you can lose almost everything and still gain an entire village.
Some residents want to change our neighborhood's name to East Millsap, hoping to fill it with shops and absorb the light of Millsap, but many more are too proud to name their neighborhood after a boy who never used a wheelchair on the sidewalk.
--- pp.16-17
The boy instinctively shouted, but immediately regretted it.
He cowered in the shadow of the pillar.
But it was too late.
The woman paused, leaned forward, and glanced at her legs with squinted eyes.
The glasses he wore reflected the light from the nearby streetlights and sparkled golden.
Judging by his shoulder-length white hair and stooped gait, he seemed to be an old man.
“Who’s there?” the woman shouted through her shade, beyond the rain that surrounded her.
The boy sat still, his body pressed so tightly that the iron bolts of the pillar dug between his shoulders.
“Oh my God!” the woman gasped, her eyes wide open.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy? What the hell? Father in heaven, help me.
“Get out of there quickly!”
The boy shuddered and leaned into the cone of light.
More disturbing than the impulse to end my life was the fact that a stranger had caught me on the edge of life.
“That’s not it!” he shouted at the woman.
“I… I was just looking at the river.”
--- p.26
There was no laptop or internet in the house, so for the next week, Hai stayed up late at night, staying by Grazina's side as she suffered from uneasy dreams, reading The Brothers Karamazov, the moldy pages of which kept falling out of his hands.
Every time I turned the page, the paper crunched.
As I read, the book was practically falling apart.
How strange it is to sense something so infinitely close to mercy.
It was even more strange that it was found at the end of a poisonous riverside road lined with abandoned houses, among many other places.
And that, amidst the trash, he had become the closest thing to the person he wanted to be.
Hai, who spent his days sitting under a light bulb and reading a book, was warm and alone, and even though he was alone, he was somehow someone's son.
--- p.104
Hai took the blanket downstairs and spread it on the floor for himself and Sonny to sleep on together.
Sony crawled down from the sofa in a daze and stretched out.
Hai laid Grazina down on the sofa, took off her glasses, soaked her lower dentures in a glass of water, and covered her shoulders with a quilt.
Then he finally lay down too.
As I was looking up at the ceiling, I heard Sony scratching his head.
It looked like he was touching his scar.
It was a habit I often had when I was just sitting there blankly.
Then Sony said something very quietly, but it was hard to tell whether he was talking to Hai or to himself.
“Why am I so terribly sad?”
That was all.
--- p.216
As the van rolled down the road, Hai watched the spinning Blue Chicken sign and thought of the man who must have been lying still on the floor of a Virginia diner freezer, his soul hovering in the air, waiting for the end of his shift to come home.
Then, somehow, the emperor pigs came to mind.
The name Emperor Pig was not given to signify rule, but to symbolize their devotion to the ruler.
The sun tumbled below the horizon, spreading peach-colored flecks over the hills.
The clock on the dashboard showed 7:01 PM.
Grazina was dozing off and waking up.
The inside of the van was warm with the body heat of the people, but the cold April night air seeped in through the cracks in the windows.
The glass fogged up as Hai rested his chin on the window and watched the last rays of sunlight fall on the shacks, gas stations, and half-lit commercial buildings, transforming into colorful shards.
Because our town is called East Gladness.
The town of Gladness no longer exists.
It was renamed Millsap nearly a century ago in honor of Tony Millsap, a boy who lost his limbs in World War I and returned home a hero.
It's proof that in this country, you can lose almost everything and still gain an entire village.
Some residents want to change our neighborhood's name to East Millsap, hoping to fill it with shops and absorb the light of Millsap, but many more are too proud to name their neighborhood after a boy who never used a wheelchair on the sidewalk.
--- pp.16-17
The boy instinctively shouted, but immediately regretted it.
He cowered in the shadow of the pillar.
But it was too late.
The woman paused, leaned forward, and glanced at her legs with squinted eyes.
The glasses he wore reflected the light from the nearby streetlights and sparkled golden.
Judging by his shoulder-length white hair and stooped gait, he seemed to be an old man.
“Who’s there?” the woman shouted through her shade, beyond the rain that surrounded her.
The boy sat still, his body pressed so tightly that the iron bolts of the pillar dug between his shoulders.
“Oh my God!” the woman gasped, her eyes wide open.
“What are you doing? Are you crazy? What the hell? Father in heaven, help me.
“Get out of there quickly!”
The boy shuddered and leaned into the cone of light.
More disturbing than the impulse to end my life was the fact that a stranger had caught me on the edge of life.
“That’s not it!” he shouted at the woman.
“I… I was just looking at the river.”
--- p.26
There was no laptop or internet in the house, so for the next week, Hai stayed up late at night, staying by Grazina's side as she suffered from uneasy dreams, reading The Brothers Karamazov, the moldy pages of which kept falling out of his hands.
Every time I turned the page, the paper crunched.
As I read, the book was practically falling apart.
How strange it is to sense something so infinitely close to mercy.
It was even more strange that it was found at the end of a poisonous riverside road lined with abandoned houses, among many other places.
And that, amidst the trash, he had become the closest thing to the person he wanted to be.
Hai, who spent his days sitting under a light bulb and reading a book, was warm and alone, and even though he was alone, he was somehow someone's son.
--- p.104
Hai took the blanket downstairs and spread it on the floor for himself and Sonny to sleep on together.
Sony crawled down from the sofa in a daze and stretched out.
Hai laid Grazina down on the sofa, took off her glasses, soaked her lower dentures in a glass of water, and covered her shoulders with a quilt.
Then he finally lay down too.
As I was looking up at the ceiling, I heard Sony scratching his head.
It looked like he was touching his scar.
It was a habit I often had when I was just sitting there blankly.
Then Sony said something very quietly, but it was hard to tell whether he was talking to Hai or to himself.
“Why am I so terribly sad?”
That was all.
--- p.216
As the van rolled down the road, Hai watched the spinning Blue Chicken sign and thought of the man who must have been lying still on the floor of a Virginia diner freezer, his soul hovering in the air, waiting for the end of his shift to come home.
Then, somehow, the emperor pigs came to mind.
The name Emperor Pig was not given to signify rule, but to symbolize their devotion to the ruler.
The sun tumbled below the horizon, spreading peach-colored flecks over the hills.
The clock on the dashboard showed 7:01 PM.
Grazina was dozing off and waking up.
The inside of the van was warm with the body heat of the people, but the cold April night air seeped in through the cracks in the windows.
The glass fogged up as Hai rested his chin on the window and watched the last rays of sunlight fall on the shacks, gas stations, and half-lit commercial buildings, transforming into colorful shards.
--- p.331
Publisher's Review
Why is life so painful and yet so beautiful?
"On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated" by Ocean Vuong, a new novel
“One of the most beautiful pieces of writing I have ever encountered in my life.
“I have never seen a writer who captures the essence of ordinary people as well as Ocean Vuong.” _Oprah Winfrey
Even if it is a lie that supports the collapsing reality
We gladly walked into it
Boy Hai looks down at the river from the railway bridge.
Nineteen years old, the world is full of despair.
As a Vietnamese immigrant and a member of a sexual minority, American society never gave him a place to stand.
I tried to live up to my mother's expectations by working day in and day out at the nail salon, but my life at university fell apart.
After losing his beloved lover and turning to drugs, he gave up his studies and returned home with debt when his scholarship was cut off.
In front of her disappointed mother, Hai lied once again.
I got accepted to medical school in Boston and had to leave home soon.
But now, Hai had nowhere to go and nowhere to return to.
So I decided to jump.
Just disappear from the world.
Grazina, who was left alone after losing her entire family, suffers from Alzheimer's.
If I skip my medication, it's hard to stay sane, and I even have vague memories of how I came to America.
With memories of war in his mind, he vaguely feels that he does not have much time left.
I will leave this house.
I will never be able to return to this place filled with memories of my family.
Her days are intertwined with fading memories.
Then one day, Grazina sees a boy shivering on a railway bridge.
I couldn't just sit by and watch, so I decided to hold on.
I might forget everything tomorrow, but for this moment, I couldn't let him go.
A nineteen-year-old boy who tried to end his own life and an octogenarian who tried to endure life even in oblivion.
《The Emperor of Joy》 is the story of the strange and beautiful cohabitation between these two people.
Grazina finds comfort in Hai's affection, and Hai opens his heart to Grazina's innocence.
At night, memories of the war come flooding back to Grazina, who cries out that she must escape from Lithuania. To help her, Hai transforms into Sergeant Pepper of the US Army.
Under his guidance, Grazina begins her journey back to America in her memories.
The journey of the two becomes not an escape from reality, but their last hope to hold on to each other.
Staying where no one comes
People who can't go anywhere
The paradise they found called joy
As Grazina's finances become tighter after she begins living with Hai, Hai gets a job at the restaurant 'Home Market' with the help of her cousin Sonny.
Although small in size, the staff of this restaurant, who are united by their pride in being the best in the area, work tirelessly from morning till night under the direction of the quirky manager, BJ.
At first, they seemed like odd colleagues, but as they spent time together, they gradually came to understand each other's temperaments, habits, and even unspoken feelings.
In the familiar smell of sweat, the flow of movement, and the moments of kindness that expect nothing in return, Hai feels a sense of comfort in the workplace, labor, and the trust given by her colleagues.
For the first time, he had a community he could call 'home' and 'family'.
East Gladness, the setting of The Emperor of Joy, is a fictional town located on the outskirts of Hartford, Connecticut.
As is often the case with blue-collar industrial cities, this one is also going through a period of decline.
A place where trains and cars pass by and no one stays, and the only people left are those who cannot leave or have nowhere to go.
The same goes for Haiwa Grazina and her colleagues at the home market.
These people are forced to live exposed to the structural problems of American society - poverty, racism, drugs, and inequalities in access to education and healthcare - but the only way they can protect each other is through 'kindness that costs nothing.'
In a conversation with Oprah Winfrey, Ocean Vuong said she wanted to write about people who “have no shelter,” and that she focused on the small acts of kindness that people with little to no money offer without expecting anything in return.
The Emperor of Joy is another autobiographical novel by Ocean Vuong, similar yet different from his previous work, On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated.
Hai, a Vietnamese immigrant and queer boy, experiences both hope and frustration as he grows up, and this story is deeply moving, with refined poetic language and delicate observation.
In particular, translator Kim Ji-hyun praises “The Emperor of Joy” as “a work that most clearly reveals compassion and love for fragile humanity,” emphasizing that it is a novel that is even more valuable now that the trend of exclusion is intensifying around the world.
The meaningful title, 'The Emperor of Joy,' vividly evokes an image in the reader's mind only after closing the book.
Through this book, I hope you will discover how the small acts of kindness we extend to one another can become the strength that sustains one's world.
"On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated" by Ocean Vuong, a new novel
“One of the most beautiful pieces of writing I have ever encountered in my life.
“I have never seen a writer who captures the essence of ordinary people as well as Ocean Vuong.” _Oprah Winfrey
Even if it is a lie that supports the collapsing reality
We gladly walked into it
Boy Hai looks down at the river from the railway bridge.
Nineteen years old, the world is full of despair.
As a Vietnamese immigrant and a member of a sexual minority, American society never gave him a place to stand.
I tried to live up to my mother's expectations by working day in and day out at the nail salon, but my life at university fell apart.
After losing his beloved lover and turning to drugs, he gave up his studies and returned home with debt when his scholarship was cut off.
In front of her disappointed mother, Hai lied once again.
I got accepted to medical school in Boston and had to leave home soon.
But now, Hai had nowhere to go and nowhere to return to.
So I decided to jump.
Just disappear from the world.
Grazina, who was left alone after losing her entire family, suffers from Alzheimer's.
If I skip my medication, it's hard to stay sane, and I even have vague memories of how I came to America.
With memories of war in his mind, he vaguely feels that he does not have much time left.
I will leave this house.
I will never be able to return to this place filled with memories of my family.
Her days are intertwined with fading memories.
Then one day, Grazina sees a boy shivering on a railway bridge.
I couldn't just sit by and watch, so I decided to hold on.
I might forget everything tomorrow, but for this moment, I couldn't let him go.
A nineteen-year-old boy who tried to end his own life and an octogenarian who tried to endure life even in oblivion.
《The Emperor of Joy》 is the story of the strange and beautiful cohabitation between these two people.
Grazina finds comfort in Hai's affection, and Hai opens his heart to Grazina's innocence.
At night, memories of the war come flooding back to Grazina, who cries out that she must escape from Lithuania. To help her, Hai transforms into Sergeant Pepper of the US Army.
Under his guidance, Grazina begins her journey back to America in her memories.
The journey of the two becomes not an escape from reality, but their last hope to hold on to each other.
Staying where no one comes
People who can't go anywhere
The paradise they found called joy
As Grazina's finances become tighter after she begins living with Hai, Hai gets a job at the restaurant 'Home Market' with the help of her cousin Sonny.
Although small in size, the staff of this restaurant, who are united by their pride in being the best in the area, work tirelessly from morning till night under the direction of the quirky manager, BJ.
At first, they seemed like odd colleagues, but as they spent time together, they gradually came to understand each other's temperaments, habits, and even unspoken feelings.
In the familiar smell of sweat, the flow of movement, and the moments of kindness that expect nothing in return, Hai feels a sense of comfort in the workplace, labor, and the trust given by her colleagues.
For the first time, he had a community he could call 'home' and 'family'.
East Gladness, the setting of The Emperor of Joy, is a fictional town located on the outskirts of Hartford, Connecticut.
As is often the case with blue-collar industrial cities, this one is also going through a period of decline.
A place where trains and cars pass by and no one stays, and the only people left are those who cannot leave or have nowhere to go.
The same goes for Haiwa Grazina and her colleagues at the home market.
These people are forced to live exposed to the structural problems of American society - poverty, racism, drugs, and inequalities in access to education and healthcare - but the only way they can protect each other is through 'kindness that costs nothing.'
In a conversation with Oprah Winfrey, Ocean Vuong said she wanted to write about people who “have no shelter,” and that she focused on the small acts of kindness that people with little to no money offer without expecting anything in return.
The Emperor of Joy is another autobiographical novel by Ocean Vuong, similar yet different from his previous work, On Earth We Are Temporarily Fascinated.
Hai, a Vietnamese immigrant and queer boy, experiences both hope and frustration as he grows up, and this story is deeply moving, with refined poetic language and delicate observation.
In particular, translator Kim Ji-hyun praises “The Emperor of Joy” as “a work that most clearly reveals compassion and love for fragile humanity,” emphasizing that it is a novel that is even more valuable now that the trend of exclusion is intensifying around the world.
The meaningful title, 'The Emperor of Joy,' vividly evokes an image in the reader's mind only after closing the book.
Through this book, I hope you will discover how the small acts of kindness we extend to one another can become the strength that sustains one's world.
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of issue: November 17, 2025
- Page count, weight, size: 540 pages | 674g | 142*210*25mm
- ISBN13: 9791168343337
- ISBN10: 116834333X
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