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  • Published: 22 May 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241145722
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 160
Categories:

When The Emperor Was Divine



Julie Otsuka's powerful, deeply humane and critically acclaimed first novel about the Japanese-American experience during the Second World War, based on a true story

Four months after Pearl Harbor, signs begin appearing up and down the West Coast instructing all persons of Japanese ancestry to report to 'assembly centers'. For one family - reclassified, virtually overnight, as unwelcome enemies - it is the beginning of a nightmare of oppression and alienation that will alter their lives forever.

There is the mother, reeling from the order to 'evacuate', and the daughter, travelling on the long train journey away from freedom. There is the son, who struggles to adapt to their new life in the dust of the Utah desert, and the father, who, after four bitter years in captivity, returns to his family a stranger.

Based on a true story, Julie Otsuka's powerful, deeply humane first novel tells of a forgotten generation who found themselves imprisoned in their own country, and evokes an unjustly overlooked episode in America's wartime history.

  • Published: 22 May 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241145722
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 160
Categories:

About the author

Julie Otsuka

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. She lives in New York City.

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Praise for When The Emperor Was Divine

A remarkable, beautifully written story of panic, prejudice and shame ... outstandingly accomplished and moving

Sunday Telegraph

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

Exceptional

New Yorker