Julie Otsuka's commanding and passionate debut novel explores unfamiliar history - that of Japanese Americans in World War II. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination of a generation who find themselves interned in their own country. With each chapter flawlessly executed from a different point of view - the mother; the daughter; the son; the family's return to their home; and the bitter release of their father - she has created a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion. "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.
- ISBN10 0141009055
- ISBN13 9780141009056
- Publish Date 12 January 2004 (first published 10 September 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 30 September 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 160
- Language English