Ocean Vuong is writing a new work for an art project in Norway. But you’ll have to wait 94 years to read it.
Vuong, the poet and author of the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, is the latest writer to take part in the Future Library, the Guardian reports. The project features authors contributing texts that will be unveiled in 2114.
The Future Library is the brainchild of Scottish artist Katie Paterson, who created it in 2014. She plans to recruit 100 writers across the globe to contribute texts to the project.
“The authors are being selected for their outstanding contributions to literature and poetry and for their works’ ability to capture the imagination of this and future generations,” Paterson wrote on the project’s website. “Key words in the selection process are ‘imagination’ and ‘time.’”
In 2114, the works will be unveiled and printed on Norwegian spruce trees in the Nordmarka forest in Norway that Paterson planted in 2014. Other authors participating in the project include Han Kang, Margaret Atwood, Sjón, David Mitchell, and Karl Ove Knausgaard.
Vuong told the Guardian that he was drawn to the project because it was “less egotistical than regular publishing.”
“So much of publishing is about seeing your name in the world, but this is the opposite, putting the future ghost of you forward,” Vuong said. “You and I will have to die in order for us to get these texts. That is a heady thing to write towards, so I will sit with it a while.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
