Ocean Vuong is the author of the novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, out from Penguin Press (2019) and forthcoming in 20 languages worldwide. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, his honors include fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize.

"Prayer for the Newly Damned" was the winner of The American Poetry Review's Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets in 2011.