NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Nashville Public Library and Nashville Public Library Foundation are proud to honor poet and novelist Ocean Vuong as the 2026 Literary Award winner. Mr. Vuong will be recognized for his contributions to literature during the 22nd Anniversary Literary Award Weekend, presented by First Horizon Foundation. His work, which moves between poetry and fiction with equal force, makes him an ideal recipient for this award sponsored by Sandra Schatten Foundation.
Mr. Vuong will be celebrated across two days at several events, including the First Edition Reception, sponsored by Pinnacle Financial Partners; the Public Lecture, sponsored by Dollar General and Carol and Bobby Frist; and the Literary Award Gala, sponsored by Amazon and The Judy and Laura Anne Turner Endowment Fund. The weekend events are co-chaired by Deborah Webster-Clair and Walter Clair, Anne Davis and Karl Dean, and Dee and Anand Patel.
“Ocean Vuong writes about family, memory, and the ordinary work people do to lift each other up in difficult times,” said Shawn Bakker, president of Nashville Public Library Foundation. “He is a masterful writer with a unique voice, and we are honored to bring him to Nashville.”
“First Horizon Foundation is again proud to serve as presenting sponsor of Nashville Public Library Foundation’s Literary Award Weekend,” says Carol Yochem, President of the Central Region of First Horizon Bank. “We look forward to a memorable weekend for our city.”
The community will have a chance to hear from Mr. Vuong during the free Public Lecture on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 10 a.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. High School. The lecture will be broadcast live on NECAT and streamed on Nashville Public Library’s YouTube channel, with watch parties hosted at several branches, so Nashvillians can take part from their own neighborhoods.
The Literary Award Gala follows that evening in the Grand Reading Room of the Main Library, with a cocktail reception and dinner.
The Public Lecture is free and open to the public. Tickets for the Gala go on sale in September 2026. Be the first to know when tickets become available by signing up for the Foundation’s newsletter. For more information or to make a gift, visit nplf.org.
About the 2026 Literary Award Honoree, Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is the author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, winner of the American Book Award, the Mark Twain Award, and the New England Book Award. The novel spent six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold more than a million copies in 40 languages. A National Book Award nominee and recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, he is also the author of the poetry collections Time Is a Mother, a finalist for the Griffin Prize, and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book and winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, and the Thom Gunn Award. His latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is an instant New York Times bestseller and an Oprah’s Book Club pick.
A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, Mr. Vuong has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of its 100 Leading Global Thinkers. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets.
Born in Saigon, Vietnam, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, in a working-class family of nail salon and factory laborers, he studied at Manchester Community College before transferring to Pace University, then graduated from Brooklyn College with a BA in nineteenth-century American literature. He received his MFA in poetry from NYU, where he now serves as Professor of Modern Poetry and Poetics in the MFA program. He splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.