When the Emperor Was DivineFrom the bestselling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers, this commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese American incarceration camps that is both a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and a resonant lesson for our times. On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty incarceration camp in the Utah desert. In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines. |
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asked barracks began beneath blue brought called closed dark door dreams dress dust everything eyes face father fence fingers floor front gave girl glass gone hair hall hand he'd head hear heard horse inside knew late later leaves letters light lived longer looked miss morning mother mouth never night once passed picked play pulled radio reached remember seen sent shade shoes shouted side sister sleep slept slowly smell Sometimes sound standing stood stopped street suitcase sure talking tell things thought told took touched train trees turned wait walked wall wanted watched wearing week whispered White Dog wind window woman wooden wore yard