Julie Otsuka's commanding and passionate debut novel explores unfamiliar history - that of Japanese Americans in World War II. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination of a generation who find themselves interned in their own country. With each chapter flawlessly executed from a different point of view - the mother; the daughter; the son; the family's return to their home; and the bitter release of their father - she has created a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion. "When The Emperor Was Divine" is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times. It heralds the arrival of a singularly gifted new novelist.

When the Emperor Was Divine

Literature & Fiction

Otsuka, Julie

Genre Fiction

Penguin

The Swimmers

A Vogue Best Book of 2022A Bookseller Editor's ChoiceRed Magazine's '10 Best New Books Out This Month''Here comes the new Julie Otsuka novel, so we can begin to live again' Colson Whitehead, author of Harlem Shuffle'Her wisdom is staggeringly beautiful, implicating each of us ' The Irish Times' Heartbreaking and astoundingly good' Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers'Haunting, ironic and poetic in its resonance, this slender volume is a must-read...Don't miss this beautifully written, heartfelt, wry and wistful exploration of loss.' Woman & Home'I'm in awe of how this beautiful, graceful novel can hold so much grief and loss and love in its a literary gem.' Nicci Gerard, author of A Story Of Our TimesFrom the internationally bestselling author of The Buddha in the AtticUp above there are wildfires, smog alerts, epic droughts, paper jams, teachers' strikes, insurrections, revolutions, record-breaking summers of unendurable heat, but down below, at the pool, it is always a comfortable eighty-one degrees ...Alice is one of a group of obsessed recreational swimmers for whom their local swimming pool has become the centre of their lives - a place of unexpected kinship, freedom, and ritual. Until one day a crack appears beneath its surface ...As cracks also begin to appear in Alice's memory, her husband and daughter are faced with the dilemma of how best to care for her. As Alice clings to the tethers of her past in a Home she feels certain is not her home, her daughter must navigate the newly fractured landscape of their relationship.A novel about mothers and daughters, grief and memory, love and implacable loss, The Swimmers is spellbinding, incantatory and unforgettable. The finest work yet from a true modern master.'An unforgettable novel about mothers and daughters by a spellbinding talent' Daily Mail'Stylistically ambitious and deeply moving ' Kirkus Reviews'A goddamn heartbreaker' Emma Straub, author of The Vacationers

The Buddha in the Attic

Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic, the follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine was shortlisted for the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and winner of the Pen Faulkner Award for Fiction 2012. Between the first and second world wars a group of young, non-English-speaking Japanese women travelled by boat to America. They were picture brides, clutching photos of husbands-to-be whom they had yet to meet. Julie Otsuka tells their extraordinary, heartbreaking story in this spellbinding and poetic account of strangers lost and alone in a new and deeply foreign land.
'Sweeping, symphonic, empathic . . . subtle, infinitely skilful . . . an exhilarating, compulsive read. Otsuka's haunting, heartbreaking conclusion, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, is faultless' Daily Mail
'A tender, nuanced, empathetic exploration of the sorrows and consolations of a whole generation of women . . . the distaff equivalent of a war memorial' Daily Telegraph
'A haunting and heartbreaking look at the immigrant experience . . . Otsuka's keenly observed prose manages to capture whole histories in a sweep of gorgeous incantatory sentences' Marie Claire
'An understated masterpiece... she conjures up the lost voices of a generation of Japanese American women without losing sight of the distinct experience of each' San Francisco Chronicle
Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is the author of the novel When the Emperor Was Divine, and a recipient of the Asian American Literary Award, the American Library Association Alex Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic, was nominated for the 2011 National Book Award. She lives in New York City.

Literary

Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, When the Emperor Was Divine is the critically acclaimed debut novel by bestselling writer Julie Otsuka - author of The Buddha in the Attic - in which she explores the lives of Japanese immigrants living in America during the Second World War. It is four months after Pearl Harbour and overnight signs appear all over the United States instructing Japanese Americans to report to internment camps for the duration of the war. For one family it proves to be a nightmare of oppression and alienation. Explored from varying points of view - the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train journey; the son in the desert encampment; the family's return home; and the bitter release of their father after four years in captivity - it tells of an incarceration that will alter their lives for ever.
Based on a true story, Julie Otsuka's powerful, deeply humane novel tells of an unjustly forgotten episode in America's wartime history.
'Honest and gloriously written, will haunt you long after you've turned the final page. Brilliant' Elle 'An intense jewel of a book written with clarity and beauty' Marie Claire 'Vindicates the suffering of the Japanese in America . . . a blistering first novel' The Times Literary Supplement 'A compelling, powerful portrait of a terrible endurance. Terrific' The Times Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is the author of the novel When the Emperor Was Divine, and a recipient of the Asian American Literary Award, the American Library Association Alex Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic, was nominated for the 2011 National Book Award. She lives in New York City.

When The Emperor Was Divine

Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award Julie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird” —The New York Times) is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago. In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war. In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream.

Reference

KNOPF

Anchor

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award For Fiction National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist A New York Times Notable Book A gorgeous novel by the celebrated author of When the Emperor Was Divine that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago. In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. Once again, Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.

The Buddha in the Attic (Pen/Faulkner Award - Fiction)

Vintage

Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award Julie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird” —The New York Times) is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago. In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war. In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream. From the Hardcover edition.

United States

Random House Audio |

Julie Otsuka’s commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination—both physical and emotional—of a generation of Japanese Americans. In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view—the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family’s return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after more than four years in captivity—she has created a small tour de force, a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion. Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated, When the Emperor Was Divine is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times. It heralds the arrival of a singularly gifted new novelist.

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Books by Otsuka, Julie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Otsuka, Julie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

When the Emperor Was Divine

The Swimmers

The Buddha in the Attic

When The Emperor Was Divine

The Buddha in the Attic

The Buddha in the Attic

The Buddha in the Attic (Pen/Faulkner Award - Fiction)

The Buddha in the Attic

When the Emperor Was Divine

When the Emperor Was Divine