Review: When the Emperor was Devine by Julie Otsuka

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 internment 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.

Kindle Edition, 148 pages

Published December 18th 2007 by Anchor (first published 2002)  

Genre: HIstorical Fiction

Kristine's Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoy reading World War II historical fiction. I came across a list of the most popular World War II fiction of the past decade and had a look at it. Many of the titles were familiar ones that I have enjoyed but there were also quite a few that I was not familiar with. When the Emperor was Devine was one of them. I decided that I needed to change that.

I have to say that I was blown away by this book. It followed a nameless Japanese American family from the moment they found out they were being sent away to an interment camp to after they were released from the camp. It was delivered from five different points of view to tell the story of what happened to them. What I really liked about it while reading each point of view was the honesty in which it was portrayed. Instead of trying to tug at the readers heart string with the atrocious and unbelievable living conditions (which would be easy to do) the author dove into the brain of each nameless character to reveal the simple and honest thoughts of who the speaker was. The thoughts were thoughts of a little boy or a pre-teen girl and were not just about what was happening to them. I found it to be very powerful and thought provoking.

This book has been reviewed thousands of times so I will keep my thoughts on it brief. When the Emperor was Devine was an easy to read book that can be read in a single sitting. It was very cleverly written about a dark time is U.S history and will be sure to stay with you long after the last page is turned.

About the Author

Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. After studying art as an undergraduate at Yale University she pursued a career as a painter for several years before turning to fiction writing at age 30. She received her MFA from Columbia. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Asian American Literary Award, and the American Library Association Alex Award.

Connect with Julie

Website/Goodreads