--- description: Find out how Ocean Vuong is shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. title: Ocean Vuong Is on the 2025 TIME100 Next image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9032237dc3bd81/6998c9fb47fe512f7755c169/t100-next-2025-ocean-vuong.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 30, 2025 # Ocean Vuong by Viet Thanh Nguyễn  Jody Rogac for TIME Few writers can command a stage like Ocean Vuong. He is soft-­spoken but intense, dramatic yet understated, distant as well as intimate. His persona as a speaker and performer seems organically connected to his persona as an author whose works elicit enormous emotional identification from his substantial audience. In an age of declining reading, the popularity of Vuong’s poetry and novels—including his most recent, _The Emperor of Gladness_, which was an immediate best seller this spring—is a heartening reminder that there are still dedicated readers. Not only that—these readers can be fans. Vuong is one of the few writers who have transcended the purely literary world into the realm of actual celebrity, buoyed by the power of his writing and the insight, sensitivity, and openness that it exhibits. At a time when the culture and politics of the U.S. have hardened, when empathy is considered suspect by some of the most powerful, Vuong’s alluring and radical vulnerability comes off not as weakness but as strength. _Nguyen is a Pulitzer-­winning author_ Ocean Vuong: TIME100 Next 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2025/7318885/ocean-vuong/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2025/7318885/ocean-vuong/"},"headline":"Ocean Vuong","datePublished":"2025-09-30T11:00:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:55:19.658Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2025/7318885/ocean-vuong/","keywords":["TIME100 Next","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9032237dc3bd81/6998c9fb47fe512f7755c169/t100-next-2025-ocean-vuong.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5b9032237dc3bd81/6998c9fb47fe512f7755c169/t100-next-2025-ocean-vuong.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-next/","name":"TIME100 Next"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-next-2025/7318885/ocean-vuong/","name":"Ocean Vuong"}}]}] ```