《The Emperor of Gladness》作者：Ocean Vuong【EPUB】

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The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.


Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the American Book Award, he used to work as a fast-food server, which inspired The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.

烟雨红尘

我辈来到这个世上，从没想到会活着回去
也很无奈啊

世界上最艰难的事情，莫过于只能活一次……  

在一个位于康涅狄格州的后工业小镇——东格拉德尼斯，一个夏夜的傍晚，19岁的海站在桥边，大雨倾盆，他正准备跳下去时，突然听到河对岸有人喊叫。那个声音属于格拉齐娜，一位患有痴呆症的老年寡妇。她劝说海另寻出路。在无助与绝望中，海很快成了她的照顾者。在接下来的一年里，这对看似不可能成为朋友的人之间建立起了一种改变人生的纽带——这种纽带建立在相互理解、精神上的反思以及彼此的痛苦之上，它彻底改变了海与自己、与家人，以及与那个处于崩溃边缘的社区之间的关系。  

《格拉德尼斯的皇帝》通过描绘历史、记忆与时间的循环，展现了爱情、劳动与孤独如何成为美国社会生活的基石。这部作品本质上是一部关于“如何在社会边缘生存”以及“如何面对那些困扰我们所有人的心灵创伤”的勇敢史诗。欧文·武雄独特的写作风格——形式上的创新、精巧的句式运用，以及将坚韧与温柔完美结合的能力——在这部关于失去与希望的故事中得到了充分体现。它也向我们展示了：为了获得生命中最珍贵的馈赠——第二次机会——我们愿意付出多少努力。