One Community, One Book: 2005 Selection
When the Emperor Was Divine
by Julie Otsuka
About The Book
This heartbreaking, bracingly unsentimental debut describes in poetic detail the travails of a Japanese family living in an internment camp during World War II, raising the specter of wartime injustice in bone-chilling fashion. After a woman whose husband was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy sees notices posted around her neighborhood in Berkeley instructing Japanese residents to evacuate, she moves with her son and daughter to an internment camp, abruptly severing her ties with her community. The next three years are spent in filthy, cramped and impersonal lodgings as the family is shuttled from one camp to another.
They return to Berkeley after the war to a home that has been ravaged by vandals; it takes time for them to adjust to life outside the camps and to come to terms with the hostility they face. When the children's father re-enters the book, he is more of a symbol than a character, reduced to a husk by interrogation and abuse. The novel never strays into melodrama—Otsuka describes the family's everyday life in Berkeley and the pitiful objects that define their world in the camp with admirable restraint and modesty. Events are viewed from numerous characters' points of view, and the different perspectives are defined by distinctive, lyrically simple observations.
The novel's honesty and matter-of-fact tone in the face of inconceivable injustice are the source of its power. Anger only comes to the fore during the last segment, when the father is allowed to tell his story—but even here, Otsuka keeps rage neatly bound up, luminous beneath the dazzling surface of her novel.
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'A Night With Julie Otsuka'
Date: 7:30 pm • Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Location: W10 (Buchanan Auditorium) • John Pappajohn Building
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Resources
A list of discussion questions is available.
Sponsors
The UI International Programs, UI International Writing Program, Prairie Lights Books, UI Department of History, Hancher Auditorium, the UI Charter Committee on Human Rights, UI Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the University Book Store, Iowa Book LLC, the Iowa City Human Rights Commission, Hills Bank & Trust Company, Iowa State Bank & Trust Company, the Iowa City Public Library, and the Coralville Public Library. Iowa City High School and the Iowa City West High School are also formal participants in the project.