How Ocean Vuong's writing changed after his mother's death

Inarguably, a person's parents leave their mark on them, in a variety of ways.

And in the case of a writer, those marks might very well become public.

For poet and novelist Ocean Vuong (author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and the upcoming Time Is a Mother), that is certainly the case, albeit not in the way one might expect.

He explained, in a recent interview with TIME magazine, that upon his mother's death, he realized it was time to write not for her, but for himself.

Vuong discusses his writing career and relationship with his mother – and her relationship with the United States, as an immigrant — with fellow writer, memoirist Nicole Chung.

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