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When the Emperor Was Divine

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
Call Number: PS3615.T88 W48 2003
Publication Date: 2003-10-14
This powerful first novel describes a Japanese family’s displacement from its home in Berkeley to an internment camp. After the father is arrested in 1942 on suspicion of conspiracy, the mother, daughter, and son spend three years being moved from camp to camp, hearing only occasionally from the father and then only in heavily-censored letters. The story of those three years, with their “No Japs Allowed” signs and dreadful living conditions--and the aftermath, when the family returns to its vandalized home and tries to return to normalcy--is told from multiple, shifting points of view. For the novel, Otsuka drew on her grandparents’ experiences as well as on research into the 10,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II.

Interviews with Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka Interviewed by Andrew Duncan on IndieBound

What made you choose Japanese-American internment camps as the subject matter for your first novel?

I feel like the subject matter chose me. I had never planned to write a novel about the camps -- too daunting, subject-matter-wise, and who was I to tell this particular story anyway? Would anyone even want to hear about the camps? But images of the war seemed to keep surfacing in my work, so clearly the camps were something I needed to write about. read more

"Simmering Perfection" by William Nakayama on Goldsea.com

Every first novelist daydreams of having the editors at a prestigious literary house fall in love with the manuscript over a weekend and call Monday with a handsome offer. Julie Otsuka may be the exception. read more

Densho archive interview (free guest registration required)
http://archive.densho.org/Core/SegmentsByInterview.aspx?id=234

Bibliography

Japanese American Internment - An OBOM Bibliography
Materials from the exhibit and additional Adams Library resources

This is a bibliography of library materials about the Japanese American Evacuation and Internment that were on exhibit in the Adams Library lobby, August-September 2011.

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Open Books Open Minds - When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Open Books--Open Minds

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When the Emperor Was Divine

Interviews with Julie Otsuka

Bibliography