- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Viking (30 Jan 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670912638
- ISBN-13: 978-0670912636
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.6 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 380,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
When The Emperor Was Divine
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The poignant story of a Japanese-American family separated and interred during the Second World War is the subject of Julie Otsuka 's novel. When The Emperor Was Divine examines the fate of those who are caught up in events bigger than themselves. For one middle-class Japanese family living comfortably in Berkeley, California, the weeks following Pearl Harbour turn their American dream into a nightmare. After the father is arrested and taken away, the mother can only hope that by destroying all that they have of their Japanese roots she and her children will be spared the same fate. But despite her precautions, she and her two children are taken away. Through the eyes of the children, the story follows their train journey across the United States and to a camp in the deserts of Utah, where they discover they are now the "enemy". After three years, they return to their boarded and looted home. Eventually their father is returned to them, a damaged - and different - man.. Told from the perspective of each member of the family, this book reveals how it feels to be an alien in one 's own country.
About the Author
Julie Otsuka lives in New York. This is her first novel.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a great book. It is not like any other novel I have read in a long time. Even though the characters are not named it does not prevent that connection to a characters story that makes a novel so much more of an experience. It tells the story of Japanese-Americans in the USA during WW2 in a matter-of-fact, unsentimental manner that makes you understand more than if it were written in any other way. It is a striking story of such fear in a nation that they reacted against all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation Americans born of a Japanese lineage and their confinement in internment camps for the duartion of the war. It is a book you can't help but read and sympathise with its characters.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A short, starkly written novel but beautiful and so well written. I had no knowledge of the way that Japanese Americans had been treated during World War II and this is a really powerful read. The author has based this novel on her own family experiences. Although none of the main characters even have a name, each one of them is drawn so well, that the reader really seems to know them very well.
The novel tells the story of a family - mother, daughter and son who along with thousands of other Japanese Americans in 1942 are ordered to pack up all of their possesions and are declared enemy aliens. They are held in an internment camp in the Utah desert. The father of the family has already been sent to a separate camp - one for people classed as dangerous enemies - and although he is able to write to his family, his letters are heavily censored.
Through the minute details of their lives and their memories of what life was like before the war, we get to know each character and their personalities. The father, reduced in most of the story to the author of an occasional postcard, finally rejoins his family as a shell of his former self, reduced to a fearful life of mere existence. The other members of the family, once returned home after the war, cannot look at their neighbors or even their home the same way. Each has invisible but lasting scars from their experience.
A very memorable read that really does leave a lasting impression of a very important, if hidden time in recent history.
The novel tells the story of a family - mother, daughter and son who along with thousands of other Japanese Americans in 1942 are ordered to pack up all of their possesions and are declared enemy aliens. They are held in an internment camp in the Utah desert. The father of the family has already been sent to a separate camp - one for people classed as dangerous enemies - and although he is able to write to his family, his letters are heavily censored.
Through the minute details of their lives and their memories of what life was like before the war, we get to know each character and their personalities. The father, reduced in most of the story to the author of an occasional postcard, finally rejoins his family as a shell of his former self, reduced to a fearful life of mere existence. The other members of the family, once returned home after the war, cannot look at their neighbors or even their home the same way. Each has invisible but lasting scars from their experience.
A very memorable read that really does leave a lasting impression of a very important, if hidden time in recent history.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a disturbing tale of the effects that WW11 had on Japanese-American people. To read about the internment of them is harrowing stuff. We follow one family through different stages of their experience, beginning with the father being arrested at his home, followed by the mother packing their suitcases, to the train journey and finally their arrival at the camp. This is a brilliantly written tale of an event in history that must never be forgotten.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Captivating
This is Julie Otsuka's first novel, and it draws on her heritage as an American of Japanese descent, exploring the experience of a Japanese family during the Second World War, when... Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2008 by William Burn
Captivating
This is Julie Otsuka's first novel, and it draws on her heritage as an American of Japanese descent, exploring the experience of a Japanese family during the Second World War, when... Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2008 by William Burn
beautiful, poetic, moving
This is an amazing read - and so carefully paced it reminds you of music. It is shocking and moving - but a measured work of writing. Read more
Published on 6 Dec 2004 by "endlessreader"
Magnificent little book!
A deceptively simple, deeply moving book. The story will break your heart, the writing will make it soar. Read more
Published on 20 July 2004
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