When the Emperor Was Divine (Signed First Edition/First Printing)

Julie Otsuka

ISBN 10: 0375414290 / ISBN 13: 9780375414299

Published by Knopf, New York, New York, 2002

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 007058

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When the Emperor Was Divine (Signed First Edition/First Printing)
• Publisher: Knopf, New York, New York
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375414290
• ISBN 13: 9780375414299
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is a graduate of Yale University and received her M.F.A. from Columbia. She lives in New York City.