Artists at Work

William Lee Adams is joined by Ocean Vuong to discuss his acclaimed novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous — a luminous and unflinching exploration of family, identity, memory and the complexities of love.
The story unfolds as a letter from Little Dog, a young Vietnamese American man, to his mother, Rose, who is unable to read. Through this intimate act of storytelling, he traces his childhood in Hartford, Connecticut, the inherited trauma of his family’s experiences of war and migration, and the complicated bond between mother and son. As Little Dog reflects on his coming of age, his first love with a boy named Trevor, and the tenderness and brutality that can coexist in human relationships, he searches for a language capable of expressing what his family has struggled to articulate.
Moving between personal memory and collective history, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous examines the lasting effects of war, the experience of being an outsider, the challenges of growing up queer, and the ways violence and love can become entangled across generations. With its striking imagery, poetic prose and profound emotional honesty, the novel asks what it means to tell our own stories when the people we love may never be able to hear them.
Ocean Vuong will be answering questions from our global audience of book lovers. Why craft the novel as a letter to an illiterate recipient? How does he approach the craft of poetry and prose? And are working class authors under threat in contemporary literature?

: Nikki Bedi speaks to Indian mega-star and actor, Rabir Kapoor who plays Lord Ram in the epic new movie Ramayana: Rise of a Legend
Plus, critic Badisha discusses this week’s cultural highlights:
Hollywood star and revered actor John Malkovich on his latest film, Wild Horse Nine
Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña on her work including her decision to travel to England
Oscar winning British actor Olivia Colman and Emmy Award winning Swedish star Alexander Skarsgard on their folk-frolic film, Wicker

Tuyet Vah Huynh meets two film-makers in Hanoi, Nguyen Duy Anh and Bui Kim Quy . Tuyet explains how cinema is booming in Vietnam. In 2025, more than 70 million cinema tickets were sold, and Vietnamese films took more than sixty per cent of the domestic box office. And yet, for audiences in Britain and much of the world, Vietnamese cinema can still feel largely undiscovered. Vietnam has been making films for generations, but outside the country, the image of Vietnam on screen has often been shaped by Hollywood, films about Vietnam, rather than films made by Vietnamese film.

Nikki Bedi speaks to superstar Irish-Indian poet and New York Times-Bestselling author Nikita Gill about her latest “novel in verse Styx: The River”
Plus critic Kohinoor Sahota discusses this week’s cultural highlights:
Oscar-winners Aaron Sorkin and Mikey Madison on their new film, The Social Reckoning
“Kinetic artist” Liliane Lijn on growing up in a multi-lingual household and being given Salvador Dali's moustache!
South African actor John Kani (King T’Chaka in Black Panther) on playing Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest
And fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe alum Florence Pugh on playing "fallen woman" Cathy Ames in the epic new Netflix adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden

Neil McCarthy meets Japanese artist Yuko Mohri, as she prepares for a major exhibition. Her sculptures often fuse ordinary objects, such as umbrellas, feather dusters and apples, with unstable forces such as air and water. The results are works of kinetic art that are constantly changing and evolving, as Neil discovers.