The Emperor of Gladness

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Heartbreaking, heartwarming yet unsentimental, and savagely comic' Guardian 'Some of the most beautiful writing I've experienced in my lifetime' Oprah Winfrey READERS ARE OBSESSED WITH THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS: 'Read it slowly. Let it wreck you. Then read it again' 'I feel like I lost part of my soul to this book' 'I would give it 6 stars if I could' 'Sad and funny, devastating and quietly celebratory' 'A masterwork of compassion and complexity' College dropout Hai doesn't know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life. One summer evening in the town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. When Hai takes a job at a diner to support himself and Grazina, his fellow w