photo by: Luca Bruno/AP

Poet Ocean Vuong reads a part of his book "Night sky with exit wounds" in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, July 4, 2017.

Critically acclaimed Vietnamese American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong will be in Lawrence next month for a public conversation about his work.

The free event, sponsored by The Commons at KU, is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Sept. 26 at Liberty Hall, where Vuong will speak with KU alumnus Chloé Cooper Jones, an acclaimed journalist and memoirist.

Vuong, 35, is the author of the poetry collections “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” and “Time is a Mother,” as well as the New York Times bestselling novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.” He is also a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant.

He was born in 1988 in Ho Chí Minh City, Vietnam, formerly Saigon, and immigrated to the U.S. with his family as a child.

Jones is the author of the memoir “Easy Beauty,” which was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir. She was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing in 2020. She grew up in Tonganoxie and attended KU.