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Search - When the Emperor Was Divine
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When the Emperor Was Divine Author: |
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Book Information
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Other Versions of this Book: Hardcover, Hardcover, Audio CD (Unabridged)
Book Description:
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.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Top Member Book Reviews
Jacky K. (
3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Although there are probably others, this is the first book I have seen covering the subject of the internment of our "Japanese" American citizens (natural born as well as adopted) during WWII. Very eye opening. A shameful episode in our country's history is looked upon with matter of fact eloquence.
3 member(s) found this review helpful.
Very sad but beautiful story. It's hard to believe that this really happened, especially to the Japanese-American children who really didn't even understand what was going on. But I can't even imagine what went on overseas (not like it's these people's faults). I doubt we could get away with something like that anymore.
The ending was a little odd, I really didn't understand what the father really did or what he was talking about, but it was nice that it was a somewhat happy ending...
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
A fantastic insight to what it was like during and after internment camps. I liked it.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Good historical fiction story of a young woman who is interred because of her Japanese heritage.
CINDY M. (
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
A novel, told from the point of view of 4 family members, about the Japanese American internment during WWII.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
a startling, realistic portrayal of the internment camps of the second world war, a grown up "Farewell to Manzanar"
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
This is one of those books that really stuck with me... and I learned quite a lot about what happened to the Japanese in this country.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
This rather short novel tells one of one Japanese American family's story of internment in a Utah camp during World War II. Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view. The fact that we never really learn any names or other characteristics that would set these characters apart makes it seem that the story could be ANY family. It is interesting to see how the mother, young son and daughter, and father who is taken away from his family all react to being treated as the enemy. This is a sad time in the United States' history, and the writer's sparse writing makes you feel every emotion.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
A really great book and a fast read. I knew this took place in our history, just didnt realize how it affected the people taken off to the internment camps.
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
This book is amazing. The writer's prose is so succinct that she acts a dispassionate observer of a tragedy that singles out a family and a people (Japanese Americans) for one of the greatest injustices of our history as a country. Because of the writer's unique style, the account is not weighed down by emotion. The author leaves it to the reader to impart moral judgment and emotion to what happened to Japanese Americans in this country during WW-II (my emotions and judgment are imparted above).
Please Rate these Book Reviews
Lori L. (I wanted to read about the Japanese interment camps which I didn't know that much about and this book was written from a very different and interesting perspective
from back jacket:
In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells the (story of World War II Japanese relocation) from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-waled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism.
This is about a Japanese family during WWII and how they deal with an Internment camp.
Short and sweet story of a young girls time in a Japanese internment camp.
Powerful, eloquent story of a Japanese/American family's experience in Calif. in 1942`
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