Praise for Clarkson

Brilliant...laugh-out-loud

Very funny... I cracked up laughing on the Tube

Outrageously funny...will have you in stitches

A searing combination of artistic invention and meticulous research into the 1981 New Cross Fire

This affecting poetic exploration of the New Cross Fire of 1981 (dubbed “The New Cross Massacre”) is incantatory, lyrical and documentary. It makes a deep impact both on account of its own narrative and in the wake of Grenfell

A sad and angry consolation, alert to the past... Surge is a mature work, with lyricism both poetic and pop... [One] of British poetry’s most distinctive new voices

Although the fire, the subsequent protests and the founding of the Black People’s Day of Action were documented by poets Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah among others, Bernard’s work uniquely addresses a new generation encountering this past almost afresh, as it is echoed painfully inthe present... The collection’s major achievement is its unfailing attentiveness to the framing of history through the stories of individuals and collectives that the poet holds, urgently, ethically and so skilfully, in their hands

If there were ever to be a twenty-first century Auden, with all the invention and cultural understanding, understanding of tradition and sense of the speed and the human outcome of foul politics, Jay Bernard is it

Jay Bernard’s poems sing with outrage and indignation, with fury and passion. They tell the story of two terrible fires of our times, and shockingly show how the past holds up an uncomfortable mirror to the present. They have brio, they have brilliance, they are breathtakingly brave. An astonishingly accomplished debut

Bernard brings alive the archive, evoking ghosts and giving voice to the dead and the aggrieved from moments in recent history all too painful... At each turn, these are poems that make you sit up and take notice

The poems here seethe with unspoken rage and acerbity; they read like thinned-out paraffin, something on the cusp of explosion... A brutal indictment of Britain’s racist history and hypocrisy in the face of the facts... Bernard’s persistent question drills down, line by line, into Britain’s dark subconscious

Rarely has the idea of the objectified, violated black body been framed so starkly... Bernard’s knack for showing rather than telling [...] ensures that their sustained engagement with tiered identity never feels overdone... Surge is valuable as much for its imaginative acumen as for its unflinching politics

Brilliant and unbearably moving… a kind of crowd-poem of different voices, connection the New Cross fire to the Grenfell Tower and all the victims of racism and racist violence in London

A range of poetic forms bring energy to this reappraisal of race, nation and embodiment

Imagined with both tenderness and frankness... Its strong sense of place, patois, demand for justice, curiosity...are reminders that four decade on, the tragedy remains an open wound

Jay Bernard's furious and heartbreaking poetry collection is their response to this outrageous tragedy [of the New Cross fire]. Read and feel rage

'The verse has anger and political purpose, but a rare lyrical precision, too. The combination is powerful'

The verse has anger and political purpose, but a rare lyrical precision, too. The combination is powerful

A gripping panorama of the human experience

This first English version of Stalingrad is a triumph on many levels… [Stalingrad] captures a definitive moment… [and Grossman] delivers an enduring tribute to the power of human spirit

A seething fresco of combat, domestic routine under siege and intellectual debate, it confirms that Grossman was the supreme bard of the second world war

To read Stalingrad is to be immersed in a world where everything is in flux… The reader emerges from his pages exhausted and chastened, but hugely enriched… the translators have done a superb job. If you haven’t read Life and Fate, it would pay to read Stalingrad first and prepare for the marathon of both volume; if you have, Stalingrad is an essential companion’

A powerful account of families torn apart by probably the bloodiest campaign in history

A candid meditation on masculinity, art, and the inescapable pull of opioids... Vuong peels apart phrases and reconfigures them into new, surprising ideas.

An epistolary masterpiece... Fearless, revelatory, extraordinary.

Disarmingly frank, raw in subject matter but polished in style and language, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous reveals the strengths and limitations of human connection and the importance of speaking your truth.

[Vuong's] first foray into fiction is poetic in the deepest sense - not merely on the level of language, but in its structure and its intelligence... The result is an uncategorizable hybrid of what reads like memoir, bildungsroman, and book-length poem. More important than labels, though, is the novel's earnest and open-hearted belief in the necessity of stories and language for our survival. A raw and incandescently written foray into fiction by one of our most gifted poets.

Casting a truly literary spell, Vuong's tale of language and origin, beauty and the power of story, is an enrapturing first novel.

Sometimes a writer comes along and stops your breath. I'm reading On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and there is so little air moving through my body as I read. When writing is this good, who needs air?

A poignant exploration of a family history, a celebration of maternal love and an unflinching examination of race and class. Vuong's novel is one of the most anticipated of the year.

[A] marvel of a book…[with] exquisite language.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is one of the most anticipated novels of the year… a piece of autobiographical fiction that avoids all the traps of that genre… The book has a poetic density that is at once elliptical and unflinching in its gaze, a testimony to the endlessly complicated dynamics of damage.

As an evocation of the tragic underside of American life, there’s no denying its [On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous] poetic power.

Ocean Vuong is a magician with words, when he writes, it’s as if language itself is dancing. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous… [is] a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity. This debut novel is a luminous, mesmerising gift… Extraordinary.

This moving, powerful debut from prizewinning poet Ocean Vuong… [is] a graceful exploration of race, class, and masculinity.

Vuong solidifies the epistolary as an insurrectionary American form, offering it as a means of the States’ oppressed to voice their discontents with unrelenting eloquence… Vuong writes from a site of pain and compassion, for himself, for his mother, and for everyone else.

A moving, glittering letter from a son to a mother… direct, touching, stunningly wrought, [On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is] staggeringly good.

A brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity, as well as a discovery of how immersed we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness.

Unforgettable… Asking questions central to the American moment, immersed as it is in addiction, violence and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

Vuong’s gambit is to make the reader reckon not only with difficult subjects, but also pay generous, open attention to the world… This consummately American novel both documents the nation’s wounded psyche while giving its protagonist a path to healing.

Vuong…[is] a keen anthropologist of the contemporary American experience.

A beautiful novel full of raw feelings.

[A] phosphorescent debut novel… Vuong layers past and present brilliantly in a shifting series of brief episodes and striking mood-musings from within the mind of his protagonist… the hyperreality of Little Dog’s self-awareness is always a delight.

Staggering, sensual and poetic

[A] stunning debut… Ocean Vuong crafts lyrical, masterful prose in this emotionally-powerful piece of story telling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is sure to stay with readers long after they have put the novel down.

A brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity.

A tender exploration of violence, migration and language.

This romantic, lusciously written debut lingers over kisses.

A magical synthesis of memoir, fiction and poetry.

So very full of beauty and power. Also, grace.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a stunning, relentless work of pure passion and I was captivated from the go.

A story that is deeply relatable, understandable and can find common currency with us all. He uses his differences to connect us, to show the links that bind us, to explore violence, masculinity, poverty and yearning… you’ll quickly get carried away by his undercurrents into spaces and places you’d perhaps never thought of exploring or even realised existed.

Vuong’s gift lies in his ability to write with beautiful specificity while digging into the wounds of immigration, culture, queerness and memory. I’ve read many very good books in 2019 but none have obliterated me like On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Ocean Vuong is a magician with words. When he writes, it's as if language itself is dancing. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is… a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity. This debut novel is a luminous, mesmerising gift.

Astounding.

Vuong jettisons the prose for poetic verse, with Roland Barthes, Duchamp’s Fountain and queer love all collapsing into splintering lines of verse. Vuong’s sentences are so beautiful, sometimes I would say them over and over again in my head, hoping I might be able to trap them in there.

[Vuong is] brilliant and so flexible with language and has such an understanding of what an emotion incarnate is, he is able to not condense it but to heighten it across languages, across countries, across codes as characters speak to one another. He's peerless.

[A] triumphant debut novel... On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous felt like a true masterpiece being crafted before my eyes, and I was devastated to see the novel draw to a close. I truly can't recommend this book highly enough - I don't remember the last time I was so floored after reading something that I had to take the rest of the day off speaking to family... a passionate, eye-opening journey, and is most certainly one to be added to your lockdown reading list.

Beautifully written... Unlike anything I have read before

An engrossing coming-of-age story.

[Vuong] is an author of incredible and magical talent, with many of his paragraphs reading like the most beautiful poetry... An absolute must-read

Raw, lyrical and at times hearth-wrenching, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a book of real beauty

For a long time after I read this, I could still feel the impact of his story. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an experience that you need to have.

I read the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong while on tour and the language often stopped me in my tracks... powerful.

Inventive... [On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] just stops you as a reader to marvel at the beautifully constructed narrative