Quand l'empereur était un dieu

by Julie Otsuka

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Japan, Historical, Book Club, World War II, School

160 pages, Pocket Book

First published September 10, 2002

About the author

Julie Otsuka is a Japanese American novelist and former painter known for her evocative, lyrical prose and her autoethnographic approach to historical fiction. Drawing deeply from her family's experiences and Japanese American history, Otsuka has crafted a powerful trilogy of novels that explore identity, memory, displacement, and the emotional legacies of war and immigration.
Born in Palo Alto, California in 1962, Otsuka was raised in a household deeply shaped by the trauma of Japanese internment during World War II. Her father, an aerospace engineer, and her mother, a lab technician, were both of Japanese descent. Her mother, a nisei (second-generation Japanese American), was incarcerated along with Otsuka’s uncle and grandmother in the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah following the issuance of Executive Order 9066. Her grandfather, arrested by the FBI immediately after Pearl Harbor, inspired the father figure in her first novel. These personal family histories profoundly influenced Otsuka's writing, particularly When the Emperor Was Divine (2002), a stark yet poetic portrayal of a Japanese American family’s internment experience during the war.
Otsuka’s second novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011), turns back the clock to the early 20th century to trace the journey of Japanese “picture brides”—women who emigrated to America to marry men they had only seen in photographs. Told in a distinctive first-person plural voice, the novel earned wide acclaim for its innovative narrative structure and poignant depiction of shared female experience and cultural dislocation. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
Her third novel, The Swimmers (2022), is a deeply personal and introspective work that began with her 2011 short story “Diem Perdidi,” which centers on a mother suffering from frontotemporal dementia. The novel explores the lives of a group of regulars at a community swimming pool, with special focus on one woman whose gradual mental decline reflects Otsuka’s own experience caring for her mother, who died of the disease in 2015. With its meditative tone and deeply emotional core, The Swimmers was named one of the top ten works of fiction of 2022 by Publishers Weekly and won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Educated at Yale University (BA in Art) and Columbia University (MFA in Writing), Otsuka brings a painter’s eye for detail and composition to her prose. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Albatros Literaturpreis, and the Asian American Literary Award, among others. Critics and scholars alike praise her work for its emotional precision and historical insight, often citing her unique narrative voice and ability to transform individual memory into collective experience. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But we never stopped believing that somewhere out there, in some stranger’s backyard, our mother’s rosebush was blossoming madly, wildly, pressing one perfect red flower after another out into the late afternoon light.”

It's easy to make a story like this melodramatic, moralistic, overwrought with feelings. A less skilled writer would have done it. A story of an unnamed Japanese-American family banished from their quiet life in Berkeley to spend over three years in an internment camp for a simple "crime" of being Japanese in the US during World War II is, after all, a story that comes with built-in pathos and anger - a collision of emotions that in the right hands can deliver a perfect punch.

“Keep your head down and don’t cause any trouble, we’d been told, weeks before, in a mess hall lecture on “How to Behave in the Outside World.” Speak only English. Do not walk down the street in groups of more than three, or gather in restaurants in groups of more than five. Do not draw attention to yourselves in any way.”

But Julie Otsuka does not take the easy and obvious path. She stays away from the obvious heartstrings-tugging a lesser writer could have settled for. Instead, she delivers a subtle but remarkably powerful story; a crisp and precise and yet muted and subdued, understated and somewhat detached narrative with nevertheless a documentary camera lens-like clarity. She does not tell but shows, letting us experience and make our own conclusions through the eyes of the family members - the mother, the girl, the boy, then the combined "we" of the children's perspectives, finally ending on the shortest and the most charged viewpoint of the father. The tragedy of the casual crime of the country against some of its citizens carries a heavy weight. But still, the conclusions are left to be your own.

“They had all seen us leave, at the beginning of the war, had peered out through their curtains as we walked down the street with our enormous overstuffed suitcases. But none of them came out, that morning, to wish us goodbye, or good luck, or ask us where it was we were going (we didn’t know). None of them waved.”

The powerful parts for me were not the internment chapters but the return - back to the 'normal' world, into the lives forcibly left behind years ago, without an acknowledgement of the wrongness done but instead with a measly payout equal to those released criminals get, expected to act like nothing had happened but to cautiously "behave", accept the injustice as necessity and move on, blend in, not make any waves, pretending that they don't know who used to own the bits of life pilfered by your own neighbors. And eventually you may learn to accept the belief that somehow you must have been at fault - otherwise how can it all make sense?

“We looked at ourselves in the mirror and did not like what we saw: black hair, yellow skin, slanted eyes. The cruel face of the enemy.
We were guilty.”

It's a short book, and every page in it is essential; there's no filler, only the bits that are necessary to build the intricate picture of the events that should provoke anger but - since there's little choice for those swept away by them - have to be met with resignation and attempts to preserve dignity while inevitably stripping away the bits of self that are found to be inconvenient for those wielding power.

It's a wonderful book.

“So go ahead and lock me up. Take my children. Take my wife. Freeze my assets. Seize my crops. Search my office. Ransack my house. Cancel my insurance. Auction off my business. Hand over my lease. Assign me a number. Inform me of my crime. Too short, too dark, too ugly, too proud. Put it down in writing—is nervous in conversation, always laughs loudly at the wrong time, never laughs at all—and I’ll sign on the dotted line. Is treacherous and cunning, is ruthless, is cruel. And if they ask you someday what it was I most wanted to say, please tell them, if you would, it was this:
I’m sorry.
There. That’s it. I’ve said it. Now can I go?”

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This historical novel is both gorgeous and heartbreaking. It follows a Japanese-American family that is sent to an internment camp in the Utah desert during World War II. The story follows the family as they get the news of the forced relocation, the trip to the camp, how they lived in the barracks, and finally, after more than three years of incarceration, their return home. I appreciated this novel because the Japanese internment is a dark chapter of U.S. history, and one that seems overlooked in school textbooks.

Otsuka's writing is beautiful, and her prose is so lyrical that at times it feels poetic. I had read her other novel The Buddha in the Attic, which follows a group of Japanese women immigrating to America, and it is also gorgeous and heartbreaking. I highly recommend both of these novels to anyone interested in the perspective of Japanese-Americans.

Favorite Quote
"We used to live in the desert. We used to wake, every morning, to the blast of a siren. We used to stand in line for our meals three times a day. We used to stand in line for our mail. We used to stand in line to get coal. We used to stand in line whenever we had to shower or use the latrine. We used to hear the wind hissing day and night through the sagebrush. We used to hear coyotes. We used to hear every word spoken by our neighbors on the other side of the thin barrack wall ... We used to try and imagine what it would be like when we finally returned home."

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Emperor Was Divine is the slim, but powerful, debut novel by Julie Otsuka set during World War II.

About the book: “From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic, this commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese American incarceration camps that is both a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and a resonant lesson for our times.”

Spread over five chapters and with spare, precise, but evocative writing, When the Emperor was Divine takes place in Utah in a Japanese internment/incarceration camp. The spare storytelling gives it a literary feel and room to savor its subtlety. The settings are rich and come to life through all the senses.

Subtle writing that brings all the emotion in a way that seems effortless is my absolute favorite. My dad always told me it’s more challenging to write this way. Extra wordiness of which I’m guilty is easier. Less is more. It’s also highly readable, and this topic is emotional and heartrending. If you enjoy stories told in this style, don’t miss it.

Otsuka has a new book out called The Swimmers, and I cannot wait to read and savor my time spent with it, too.

I received a gifted copy.

Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

[Sharon Orlopp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful, disturbing, and thought provoking. Julie Otsuka's debut novel, When the Emperor Was Divine focuses on the perspectives of a Japanese mother, father, son and daughter who are sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor is bombed.

Each chapter is based on one person's perspective. The characters are unnamed and are referred to as mother, father, son and daughter. It feels jarring but it fits with not seeing or valuing people.

The book's narrative is in a distant third person except for the final chapter which is an intense, angry, sarcastic monologue by the father that describes his four years in captivity.

This short novel packs a punch.

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐rounded up to 4 ⭐

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka was a(nother) hauntingly sad story about the experience of Japanese Americans who were interned in detention camps during World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Told in heart-wrenching detail through the eyes of an 'ordinary' Japanese American family from San Francisco, who were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in an internment camp in the southwestern US, Otsuka succeeds in capturing the bewilderment, suffering and desolation of internment. Despite feeling 'American' in cultural habits and social norms like playing baseball and drinking coca cola, they were unjustly treated as traitors to the nation and relegated to being outcasts on the fringes of American society.

When the Emperor Was Divine is the second book I have read from Otsuka. The first, The Buddha in the Attic, was also partly focused on Japanese Internment during WWII. I found it gripping and emotionally charged due to Otsuka's stunning ability to blend the collective stories of multiple people into a single seamless narrative. In the case of When the Emperor Was Divine this finesse in her writing was less present. The story did not linger with me in the way that The Buddha in the Attic did. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend this one to anyone.

What I appreciated most of all about When the Emperor Was Divine, apart from Otsuka's skillful writing, were the historical facts underpinning the story. It was clear that the author had thoroughly researched this topic, even down to the minutest of details. For instance, one surprising fact that I learned through this story was that thousands of people were exchanged between Japan and the US during the war, using a ship called the USS Gripsholm.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you write about trauma? Are you verbose and expansive? Terse and straighforward? In this case, you use elegant and spare prose that brings home the extent of the wrong by never quite stating it in so many words.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Otsuka’s voice, judicious metaphors, and understated emotional hooks in this child’s eye view of the Japanese internment in World War 2. I have already had the pleasure of her 2011 gem, “The Buddha in the Attic”, which covers the same subject from an adult perspective that often breaks into powerful incantation in a broad “we” mode. In this novella eight years earlier, the narrative tends to be more conventional, yet it still has fresh and lyrical approaches for portraying this sad chapter in American history.

The boy of focus in the tale is eight at the time after Pearl Harbor when his father gets taken away from his Berkeley home by the FBI in the middle of the night. Because he was known to have a Shinto shrine with a picture of Emperor Hirohito, he was treated as a likely spy and later interned in a high security camp in New Mexico. The rest of the family--the boy, mother, and sister —is shipped to a camp in the high desert of Utah. The confused packing for the unknown and the shock of suddenly leaving friends and a beloved dog behind are touchingly presented from the boy’s perspective. The families are housed for the next three and a half years in austere barracks surrounded with barbed wire fencing manned by armed guards.

That members of the family are not named makes them stand in for all American Japanese. The family makes do the best they can, enduring the heat in the summer, the cold in the winter, maintaining their dignity despite underground rivers of shame and sense of unjust treatment by their adopted country. At first the rules for the boy are simple:
On their first day in the desert his mother had said, “Be careful.”
“Do not touch the barbed-wire fence,” she had said, “or talk to the guards in the towers.
“Do not stare at the sun.
“And, remember, never say the Emperor’s name out loud.”

(The rest of the review gives samples of their experiences with quotes of Otsuka’s succinct and often poetic prose. Some may consider that a spoiler. If so, skip to the last paragraph.)

In subtle ways, Otsuka reveals their sense of erasure:
Always, he would remember the dust. It was soft and white and chalky, like talcum powder. Only the alkaline made your skin burn. It made your nose bleed. It made your eyes sting. It took your voice away. The dust got into your shoes. Your hair. Your pants. Your mouth. Your bed.
Your dreams. …
One evening, before he went to bed, he wrote his name in the dust across the top of the table. All through the night, while he slept, more dust blew through the walls.
By morning his name was gone.

Part of the key to survival is through imagination:
All night long he dreamed of water. Endless days of rain. Overflowing canals and rivers and streams rushing down to the sea. …
On the morning he woke up longing for a glass of Coke. Just one, with lots of ice, and a straw. He’d sip it slowly. He’d make it last a long time.
A day. A week. A year, even.

The family gets periodic letters from the father, but most of the writing is blanked out by censors. The boy tries hard to keep his father’s memory alive—it choked me up pretty effectively:
He was extremely polite. Whenever he walked into a room he closed the door behind him softly. He was always on time. He wore beautiful suits and did not yell at waiters. He loved pistachio nuts. He believed that fruit juice was the ideal drink. He liked to doodle. …
Sometimes he thought he was dreaming, and he was sure that when he woke up his father would be downstairs in the kitchen whistling “Begin the Beguine” through his teeth as he fried up breakfast in the skillet. “Here it comes, champ,” his father would say, “one hobo egg sandwich.”

Eventually able bodied men in the camp are recruited to help with the harvests in the western states. Despite a bit of normalcy in the work, there was more stigma to face outside:
They said the signs in the windows were the same wherever they went: NO JAPS ALLOWED. Life was easier, they said, on this side of the fence.

And every week they heard new rumors and final solutions for their fate:
The men and women would be put into separate camps. They would be sterilized. They would be stripped of their citizenship. They would be taken out onto the high seas and shot. …

No wonder the families were susceptible to such thoughts, given the distortions and contradictions of the official statements of justification for their treatment:
You’ve been brought here for your own protection, they were told.
It was all in the interest of national security.
It was a matter of military necessity.
It was an opportunity for them to prove their loyalty.

When the war was over, I can’t imagine how things could ever be normal again for the families returning to their communities. Former acquaintances pretend not to see them. The boy can barely recognize his father when he returns months later, as he seems so aged and broken. Still, they persist with brave resilience, and a new resolve emerges:
Nothing’s changed, we said to ourselves. The war had been an interruption, nothing more. We would pick up our lives where we had left off and go on. …We would join their clubs, after school, if they would let us. We would listen to their music. We would dress just like they did. We would change our names to sound more like theirs. …We would never be mistaken for the enemy again!

This slipping into first person plural is a great breakout and preview to "The Buddha in the Attic". The "we" for me evokes the whole human race for all the expedient but inhumane solutions committed around the world to deal with the mistrust between peoples. Even in the case of genocides, it helps me a lot to think that we all are responsible for committing these acts and not give in to distancing ourselves from them by thinking in terms of "they" and "then".

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad, so sad. It's historical fiction, but it was apparently based on a true story of a real family. History does repeat itself, and I've been living with a high level of anxiety that this is happening again right now and that I will eventually be on the list too - torn from my home, separated from my family and friends, isolated and thrown in with strangers, assets seized, left to fend for myself under inhumane circumstances.

This nightmare is happening again right now. We know this. The Supreme Court has acknowledged Kilmar Abrego Garcia was illegally deported. The corruption, the railroading, the disregard for law - all this is happening now. People wonder how we got here, and I can point to this book and countless other stories to say this is how it started the last time (because there were certainly other instances of government behaving horribly many times before). But because it's happening to us right now, it feels worse. Only a few people can remember what it was like last time and even fewer who actually were victimized as Japanese who were interned. Only they can actually say what feels scarier - then or now.

Books like this are important so that we never forget and so that we always remember, so that we learn and avoid repeating our mistakes, so that we can keep government accountable, so that future generations also know. Books alone can't do all this, but they are a good start. We have to do the heavy lifting ourselves. We can do this. We must do this. Please, stand up for your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community. If enough of us do what is right, the tide can turn in that same direction!

[Isabela. · Rating 4 out of 5]

En la guerra quienes más sufren son los inocentes.

Es la frase que nunca abandona mi cabeza cuando leo este tipo de historias o aprendo sobre los conflictos actuales (y pasados). Nunca deja de sorprenderme el terrible alcance que tiene el odio (sobre todo en Estados Unidos, realmente no puede dejar de sorprenderme el nivel tan grande de racismo que habita en sus entrañas. Es como si todos los americanos rubios nacieran con el racismo en la sangre, de verdad. Aterra.)


Este es un libro que me trajo lágrimas. Es bastante fácil de leer debido a la perspectiva de sus narradores, dos niños americanos de descendencia japonesa. Creo que eso vuelve la lectura un poco más cínica y cruda. La manera en que los niños narran las cosas te provoca un choque que de otra manera no llegas a experimentar. Todo está en los pequeños detalles. Conforme revelan más de sí y de su madre, puedes entender su comportamiento. Y cuando lo entiendes, solo te puede inundar la tristeza.

La guerra es el veneno. Los hombres son el veneno. Y los inocentes son la presa.

[Pooriya · Rating 4 out of 5]

داستان درمورد زندگی مهاجران ژاپنی در آمریکا در بحبحه‌ی جنگ جهانی دوم است. خانواده‌ای که به واسطه نژادشان تنبیه می‌شوند! زیرا که انسان گرگ انسان است. هر فصل از این داستان از زبان و دیدگاه یکی از اعضای خانواده نوشته شده که درگیری‌های ذهنی‌ خودش و خانواده‌اش را با زبان و تفکر خود بیان می‌کند. فضای سیاه آن روزگار به شکلی صریح و مینیمالیستی بیان شده و سقوط انسان را در حاشیه جنگ جهانی دوم نشان می‌دهد.‏

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading When the Emperor Was Divine a couple of days ago, and I was at a loss for words for my review. Everything that I noticed, felt, and appreciated about the denseness of this sparse little book was neatly encapsulated in the synopsis of this edition. Check it out if you haven't already.

Anyway, part of my goals this year is to review every single book I read, and so OCD got the better of me, and here I am now. How can I sum up this book without being redundant? Simply this: this is a book that needs to be read at some point in your life. It's a part of "silent" history, because as of today we have yet know all the different ways Japanaese American families were affected during this pivotal time of American history. Life didn't just resume like it had before. People were changed. Familes were displaced. Belongings were lost. Spirits were broken.

Even though this was Otsuka's debut novel, I'm glad I read her follow-up first. In retrospect, The Buddah in the Attic almost seems like a prequel. Either way, you can't go wrong with either one of these books. They're short novellas, and for a somewhat slow reader, I was able to finish both in one to two sittings. Check them out if you get a chance!

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

As of this moment, there are various rules and regulations being pushed through the US government regarding the formation of internment camps for refugees fleeing through the US-Mexican border from the drug wars of the USA's creation. There's nothing new under the sun here, nothing beyond the standard protocol of a country that has been at war for 214 of the 235 years of its existence and has only increased the size of its playground over time. What that last part translates to is the fire and the frying pan, friends I've made who thought US imperialism had to be better than Chinese communism, targets of hate crimes who cannot "go back where they came from" if they don't want to be killed by drones, each and every person who both knew and had no idea what it takes to live in this land depending on the color of skin and the mode of accent and history. Always the history. The average citizen may not know the name of every president, but the pecking order they have, are, and will continue to bequeath is inherent.

Military industrial complex. What this means is ads for the Navy before Pixar movies (as many little lights as there are stars as there are threats on the globe, and that, my friend, is everywhere), minuscule reservations for 562 indigenous nations in one of the largest spans of terrorism the world has ever seen, a continual us versus them in entertainment, school curriculum, the percentage of translations allotted in the literature market (not the subtitles! anything but the subtitles!) and the number of white people teaching yoga, karate, and whatever else the fads of cultural appropriation has spat up over the centuries. This book talks about Pearl Harbor, my times talk about 9/11, and anyone who wants to argue for why what came after was made acceptable by those events needs to read, read, and keep reading the promises being made in never ending payback. The moment you cannot keep looking at the genocides being wrought in the name of that particular much named event is the moment you need to ask yourself what the actual fuck is going on.

Culture clash. The US versus Japan. Those caught and balanced between two countries that each in their own way loathe the Other within their land and that is the last thing I will say about the latter of the two cause, trust me, my side's got enough with the slurs, the rape fetishes, the white scholars making bank off of Orientalization, the concentration camp histories gone over in this tome and the military bases in Okinawa. It is one of many power plays constantly calculating how far the white US citizen can go in their treatment of this country, that religion, those people, their face, taking what they please and shaming what they know because there're few things in this world that make money faster than fear. I told you. It's an industry. Look at the correlation between when non-European countries gained their independence and when European countries got poor; then dwell upon colonies, settler states, and Manifest Destiny.

Berkeley and Bay Area co.'re popularly known as the liberal bastion of the US, home of the multicultural friendlies and open minded folks and a UC that can't seem to take the rapists on its campus seriously despite multiple lawsuits and the governmental like. Between that and this and what is yet to come in the policies of the foreign and the domestic and the Idol of Enemy Number One, what is there to be done?

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

While not as lyrical as The Buddha in the Attic, Otsuka’s first novel achieves much of the same cumulative power. The penultimate chapter, written in first-person plural, is, of course, most reminiscent of the former and perhaps in its writing Otsuka discovered the style she would later use for The Buddha in the Attic. But it is the last and shortest chapter that packs the hardest punch, pointing out even more so the absurdness, danger and sadness of this time (a time that could come again if we’re not careful). But that last chapter doesn't stand on its own: it does because of what’s come before, that cumulative power.

[JDK1962 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like an MFA thesis project. It's competently written at a technical level, but curiously flat and uninvolving because it always remains on the surface. Whatever weight or gravitas it has comes from the historical aspect (internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, for no reason other than their ancestry). The characters are not sharply drawn, and it feels like every time the author approaches any truth or insight, she scampers back to trivial surface detail. Which is a shame, because the subject seems very rich. On the large scale, the reactions one must have to having four years of life taken away and how would you re-integrate into a still racist society...while on the smaller scale, how would a society of internees organize itself and adapt, what would people do all day, how would children coming of age adapt to four years of unwarranted incarceration, etc.

Wanted to like this book, but came away with very little additional insight into the internal lives of these characters, or into the historical period.

[may ➹ · Rating 4 out of 5]

should NOT have read this in public (was fighting for my life in a boba shop trying not to cry)

rtc

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

With already so many wonderful reviews -- I'm going to just add one quote I thought about (something Jewish people often think about)

"You can't remember everything", she said.
"And even if you can you shouldn't", said the girl
"I wouldn't say that", said her mother
"You didn't", said the girl

note: Sometimes ....you find yourself reading a novel --its taking a lot of your concentration -- then you see a Goodreads friend post a beautiful review of a book you 'must' read....(you might even own it, which was the case with me) ....
You feel so inspired --moved -
So why wait?
I didn't any longer --

Very Powerful -- touching - devastating!

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to read, as well it should be, a book of loneliness, deep sadness and alienation during an episode of fairly recent history. During World War II, in fact, mere months after Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese residents of the United States were labeled enemy aliens and removed from their homes, transported across country to camps set up in the middle of the desert, inhospitable spots of searing heat in the summer and terrible cold in the winter.

This book is the story of one family, a mother, daughter and son, for the father has been removed separately. We readers witness the break up of the home, the reactions of neighbors, the long, long train trip and then arrival in what will be a new home for however long.

This is a spare book, a novella really, but every page is packed with earned emotion.

Highly recommended glimpse into an era that is little talked about in US history.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assuming you have read the book description, you already know this book’s theme is the treatment of Japanese during WW2 and Japanese internment camps in the USA. It is more a study of the psychological than factual treatment of Japanese. You will not get historical facts or precise, detailed descriptions of the camps. What you will learn is how the Japanese Americans felt and how their war experiences changed them. You will feel the discrimination they experienced.

This very short novel reads as a prose poem. Each sentence has more than one meaning. The writing is very straightforward and simple, except that you know without a doubt that what is being said is more than the straight forward, the obvious.

Here is one example. In school, when the children had returned home after the war they were asked, as all kids are asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And the reply? “I’d like to be you.” So little is said, but so much is meant. The words are so simple and yet they have a huge impact.

At the beginning the writing presents the characters in a detached manner. We are not even given the names of the mother, father and two children. They are spoken of as the girl, the boy, their father, the mother. I did not like this. I even thought this was perhaps a young adult novel. Were we being spared the grisly truths? However in the book, after the war, when the family was released from the internment camp and when the father was reunited with his family, that is when all the accusations and fears were shouted out. The contrast hits the reader like a slam in the face. When they returned to their old house and their old way of life, they are confronted with rampant discrimination. In the internment camps the barbed wire fences had separated them from it. The earlier detachment and now the honest truths were slammed up against each other. The author did this through her skill of composition. The tension you feel at the end is tremendous, the reader feels it all the more since so much has been suppressed in the earlier sections.

That I give such a short novel four stars is remarkable. It says something about the writer’s skill.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reasons I can pick up or purchase a book veer from recommendation and suggestion, which seems normal and sensible, through its association or appearance in a previous read, understandable and explicable, or its fabulous title, thank you Dan...up to it's being a lovely looking book.

Whenever i go to Hay on Wye, a marvelous town on the welsh/english border containing 37second hand book shops, I cringe at the shops that sell leather bound books by the foot or metre so as to populate some wealthy non-readers library and yet every now and again I have to recognize that i have bought books purely because of how they look or feel in the hand. This long intro is to explain why I came to be reading this first novel of Julie Otsuka speaking of the little known action by the American Authorities after Pearl Harbour in which they forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in desert camps japanese americans for the duration of the war. All I can say is i am so pleased i like nice looking things. Great, great book. Goes to prove you can judge some books by their covers.

The unnamed family, quiet, unassuming and industrious, is suddenly ripped apart by the high-handed panic of the Government. The husband/father taken off in bathrobe and slippers for interrogation and, as we would guess from his state five years later, abuse and shortly afterwards his wife and two young children are herded onto trains with other prisoners, guilty of nothing more than having differently shaped eyes, different coloured skin and taken to concentration camps in the deserts of Utah.

This is the story. Nothing more happens then their being taken away, imprisoned and then returned and yet everything does change. The cruel brutality of prejudice and rejection seen through the eyes of two children growing to maturity with the over-riding feelings of unstated guilt and blame for being different, the way in which certainty and acceptance can be dragged from under the feet of a woman previously secure in her comfortable lifestyle by her simply having been born in the wrong country; the future and humour and repsect of a man being drained or washed out of him simply because he isn't white.

Otsuka does not dwell on vicious violence or discrimination. She does not hold forth at great length on the behaviour of 'the other', all she does is simply, quietly and very movingly place before the reader the hidden results of prejudice and blind fear by allowing us entry into the tragedy of one hidden family. It is beautifuuly understated and incredibly moving for that.

The relationship of the brother and sister is wonderfully real. At one point the boy who adores wild horses watches them as they run by the side of the train taking the family to their prison. Weeks later, as they eat their stew and he wolfs it down enthusiastically he asks his sister where the cooks have got the meat. She answers drily. 'You rememeber those mustangs we were watching .....its them'. This sort of natural digging and teasing Otsuka does well. The girl is a great creation, dry, cooly witty and yet very vulnerable. She also communicates the burden of guilt the children take on as they think it must be their fault, something they did or even they begin to look to the memory of their father and wonder whether he is the guilty party.

Yet it is the relationship of the mother and father that breaks your heart. They hardly meet in the novel because it covers their enforced seperation but you feel their love. You see his guilt for failing to fulfill his marital promises, you know of her sorrow at her casual indifference to a request he made for a glass of water hours before he was taken and how this indifference cripples her but it is the beautifully simple reunion on the train station that tears you.

'He put down his suitcase and looked at her.
"Did you...." she said
"Every day," he replied. Then he got down on his knees and he took us into his arms and over and over again, he uttered our names, but still we could not be sure it was him'

This probably seems nothing but Otsuka moves to this moment and it is a stroke of genius

[Katya]

Foram trazidos para aqui para vossa protecção, diziam-lhes.
Foi tudo no interesse da segurança nacional.
Foi uma questão de necessidade militar. Uma oportunidade para provarem a vossa lealdade.

Quando o Imperador era Divino é uma narrativa curta que escapa às malhas de Hollywood e dos bestsellers que exploram a temática da II Guerra Mundial, e não se aproveita do sentimentalismo para fazer passar uma mensagem, e contar uma história que, ao discurso democrático, não convém lembrar ou destacar.
Estamos em finais de 1941 e a base naval de Pearl Harbor acaba de ser atacada. Prontamente os estados unidos reagem e, como parte das medidas de contra-ataque, Roosevelt assina a infame Ordem Executiva 9066*, um dos maiores atentados contra a liberdade individual e os direitos civis em território ocidental, ordenando o encarceramento de milhares de cidadãos nipo-americanos por ameaça de espionagem a favor do Japão.



A família Mochida
Fonte: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

Na pequena narrativa que é Quando o Imperador era Divino, o anúncio chega pela calada da noite, e terá consequências impensadas para uma família de mãe, pai, filho e filha - personagens anónimas pois que representam quaisquer dos cerca de 120 000 prisioneiros dos campos de internamento que funcionaram entre 1942 e 1945.

O CARTAZ APARECERA DE NOITE. Nos locais para afixar anúncios, nas árvores e nas paragens de autocarro. Fora afixado na montra do Woolworth. Estava à entrada da Associação Cristã da Mocidade. Haviam-no agrafado à porta do tribunal municipal e pregado, ao nível dos olhos, em todos os postes dos telefones ao longo da University Avenue.
(...)
Leu o cartaz de alto a baixo e depois, ainda a pestanejar, tirou uma caneta e leu-o outra vez. As letras eram pequenas e escuras. Algumas eram minúsculas. Escreveu algumas palavras nas costas de um recibo do banco, deu meia-volta, foi para casa e começou a empacotar as coisas.

Entre as inúmeras famílias forçadas ao confinamento dos campos...

Horas mais tarde(...)acordariam e iriam para a Estação de Controlo Civil na Primeira Igreja Paroquial no Channing Way, onde lhes prenderiam números de identificação às golas; depois, pegariam nas malas, subiriam para um autocarro e iriam para onde tinham de ir.

...milhares de membros da comunidade foram presos pelo FBI, logo após Pearl Harbor, entre eles o pai desta família. Esse mote, nascido de um ato completamente injustificável, será a espinha dorsal de um romance contido e tenso, sem cair no excesso nem no melodrama. Quando o Imperador era Divino consegue ser suficientemente conciso para nos deixar antever (sem precisar de contar) o que foi a incerteza, o medo, o desespero sofrido por estas famílias empurradas para o desconhecido e o vazio...

O último estore foi corrido e a escuridão invadiu a carruagem(...).Não via ninguém e ninguém fora do comboio a conseguia ver. Havia as pessoas no comboio e as pessoas fora do comboio, e entre ambas estavam os estores. Um homem que passasse ao longo da linha apenas veria um comboio com janelas negras passando a meio do dia. Pensaria: «Lá vai o comboio», e não voltaria a pensar nele. Pensaria noutras coisas. O que seria o jantar, talvez, ou quem ganharia a guerra. Ela sabia que era melhor assim. Quando haviam passado por uma cidade com os estores para cima, alguém atirara uma pedra por uma janela.

... milhares de pessoas que chegaram a nenhures e imediatamente souberam que aquele deserto passaria a ser a sua casa durante semanas, meses, anos...

Mil novecentos e quarenta e dois. Utah. Fim do Verão. Uma cidade de barracões de papel alcatroado atrás de uma vedação de arame farpado numa planície de poeira alcalina no meio do deserto. O vento era quente e seco, raramente chovia.

E são os anos que se passam nestes campos um dos focos mais bem conseguidos em toda a narrativa, com descrições áridas, austeras e duras trazidas até ao leitor pela voz de duas crianças que tentam compreender o lugar que ocupam numa sociedade que lhes levou o pai, o lar e a vida que conheciam a troco de horas e horas ocas e despojadas de significado:

(...)o que mais faziam era esperar. Pelo correio. Por notícias. Pelas campainhas. Pelo pequeno-almoço, pelo almoço e pelo jantar. Pelo fim de um dia e pelo começo do dia seguinte.
- Quando a guerra acabar - disse a mãe ao rapaz, - podemos guardar as nossas coisas e ir para casa.
Ele perguntou-lhe quando seria. Talvez daí a um mês? Dois meses? Um ano, no máximo? Ela abanou a cabeça e olhou pela janela. Três meninas de vestidos brancos sujos brincavam às senhoras na poeira.
- Oh, que maçada - gritavam. - Olá, quer tomar um chá?
Longe, nos céus, voavam corvos.
- Não se sabe - admitiu a mãe.

Profundamente marcada pela dureza das condições a que se vê sujeita, a mãe destas crianças é a personagem que melhor se revela no texto. Uma mulher corajosa que jamais baixa os braços perante as dificuldades e se mantém o pilar dos dois filhos no meio da dureza de uma guerra vivida em solo familiar; uma mulher que renega a sua herança, a sua história e a sua identidade para proteger aqueles que ama:

Naquela noite ela tinha acendido uma fogueira no pátio e queimado todas as cartas de Kagoshima. Queimou as fotografias da família e os três quimonos de seda que trouxera dezanove anos antes do Japão. Queimou os discos de ópera japonesa. Rasgou a bandeira do sol-nascente. Partiu o serviço de chá, os pratos de Imari e o retrato emoldurado do tio do rapaz, que tinha sido general no exército do imperador. Esmagou o ábaco e atirou-o para as chamas.
- A partir de agora contamos pelos dedos. - anunciou.
No dia seguinte, pela primeira vez, mandou o rapaz e a irmã para a escola com sanduíches de manteiga de amendoim e geleia.
- Acabaram-se os bolinhos de arroz-avisou. - E se alguém perguntar, digam que são chineses.

Em vez de dar voz ao tratamento bárbaro a que são sujeitos, em vez de replicar à exaustão o sofrimento destes milhares de pessoas postas perante uma situação de profunda injustiça, Otsuka centra a sua narrativa na contenção, no autocontrolo, e no pathos que emana da tensão em que as personagens vivem a incerteza do dia a dia, a consciência da sua diferença, o estigma de ser estrangeiro na própria pátria, o preconceito, o ódio, o racismo: o desamor.

Olhávamos para nós próprios ao espelho e não gostávamos do que víamos: cabelo preto, pele amarela, olhos em bico. A face cruel do inimigo.

Para os milhares de cidadãos encarcerados nos chamados campos de internamento norte americanos, a libertação chegou (em ondas) em 1945 - embora só em 1976 a Ordem Executiva 9066 tenha sido revogada -, mas os danos estavam feitos.

Nada mudou, pensámos nós. A guerra fora uma interrupção, nada mais. Íamos retomar as nossas vidas onde as havíamos interrompido e seguir em frente.(...)
Vestir-nos-íamos como eles. Íamos mudar os nossos nomes para soarem mais como os deles. E se a mãe nos chamasse na rua pelo nosso verdadeiro nome, viraríamos as costas e fingiríamos que não a conhecíamos. Nunca mais seríamos confundidos com o inimigo!

É para descobrir livros destes que ando empenhada em fazer engrossar a fileira de autoras aqui pelas estantes. Otsuka não desapontou e juntou-se ao desafio # LER+MULHER em lugar de destaque.


*A Ordem Executiva 9066, que permitiu encarcerar cidadãos nacionais norte-americanos sob suspeita de espionagem e filiação ao Imperador, tem consequências também fora de território norte-americano, com Canadá, Havai, Brasil, Chile, México e Argentina a seguir o mesmo caminho e a remover residentes e cidadãos dos seus territórios.

[Yukino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ero in biblioteca per riportare il Conte di Montecristo, ho fatto un giro tra gli scaffali e lo so, non dovevo, ma non ho resistito e l'ho preso ^^
Questo libro è un pugno nello stomaco. E anche se di poche pagine ho fatto fatica a "digerirlo".
Lei è sempre delicata, e pungente nello scrivere. A me piace molto la sua scrittura, anche se ammetto che è particolare, e all'inizio ci si deve fare un pò l'abitudine.
Mentre nello scorso libro abbiamo una visione corale (il libro è scritto sempre in prima persona plurale) qui si alternano i punti di vista di una famiglia composta da madre e due bambini, un maschietto e una feminuccia di 10\8 anni, il cui padre, una notte dopo Pearl Harbor, è stato portato via dall'FBI. Il libro inizia con la lettura dell'ordine di evacuazione per tutti i giapponesi dalle città.
E' straziante davvero leggere queste pagine che danno voce soprattutto ai pensieri dei due bambini. A come vedono e vivono quello che gli succede.
Straziante le ultime due pagine con il racconto del padre.
Non sappiamo come si chiamano. Ma non importa. E' una storia che riflette la storia di molte famiglie.
In realtà sono tre stelle e mezzo. Non sono riuscita a dare le quattro stelle perchè anche se mi ha toccato molto, non mi ha rapito come lo scorso libro. Forse perchè mi ha dato sui nervi leggere la vera e cruda realtà. Queste storie mi fanno davvero arrabbiare. Possibile che l'uomo non impari mai?
Gli Americani hanno preso parte alla guerra per combattere contro Hitler e che fanno? fanno la stessa cosa in casa loro? Vi giuro sono inca...nera!
Da leggere per ricordare e non dimenticare.

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful and well written novel about the internment of an unnamed Japanese-American family during the Second World War. Firstly the father is taken away in his dressing gown and slippers, a few months later his wife, son and daughter are sent to a different camp in the desert. Their experiences are told in a matter of fact way, but the trauma is obvious and their return home, over three years later is not really a happy ending.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The awful chapter of American history that involves the internment of Japanese-American families during WWII is vividly brought to life here, with clean, clear, unsentimental, evocative prose. There are some questions I have about Julie Otsuka’s approach — not the least of which is why she chose not to name any of the characters in the central family of this novel — but all in all, I’m grateful that I got to dive into experiencing this tragic history, (which is all-too-relevant to the goings-on in 2025), via the intimate, closely observed details of one family’s experiences.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very fast and worthwhile read about a Japanese family who suffers the indignities of the World War II internment camps here in the U.S. This book can easily be read in two or three hours if you have uninterrupted time. The construction is rather floaty and impressionistic rather than linear, but the prose is good and clean and easy to follow.

Prior to reading this, I'd only read about the Manzanar camp in California. So it was interesting to read about the Topaz camp in Utah. The last 40 pages or so are a little more traditionally written and very interesting, if heartbreaking. This section deals with their return to California after 3 1/2 years in the camp, and their attempts to resume their old life.

If you also want to read a book with a little more concrete information about this subject, try Farewell to Manzanar. The writing is not as pretty, but it fills in the gaps. Heck, read both books. They're short.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha egy nemzet nyomorultul érzi magát, akkor első dolga keresni egy közösséget, akit még magánál is nyomorultabbá tehet. Attól valahogy megnyugszik. Ez történt az USA japán kisebbségével is, akit az amerikai kormány ún. "nemzetbiztonsági okokból" a kontinens közepén terpeszkedő sivatagokba deportált, alkalmazva rájuk a kollektív bűnösség elvét. Mintha a 70 éves eperkertészek és unokáik másra sem vágytak volna, mint hogy jeleket adjanak Hirohito tengeralattjáróinak Kalifornia partjainál. Otsuka regénye az ő történetüket beszéli el érzékeny, de minden harsányságtól mentes eszközökkel.

Ezt a könyvet könnyebb azon keresztül leírni, ami nincs benne, mint azon keresztül, ami van. Nincsenek például benne látható gonoszok - azok az amerikaiak, akikkel a szereplők találkoznak, inkább jóindulatúak vagy semlegesek. Az ártó szándék képviselői jobbára láthatatlanok: egy távoli kéz, aki aláír egy rendeletet, névtelen cenzorok, akik kihúznak egy ártatlan mondatot, sötétben lendülő karok, akik téglát hajítanak be az ablakon, ismeretlen szomszédok, akik a lakók távollétében ellopják azok holmiját. Azonban ez nem könnyíti meg a deportáltak helyzetét, sőt: azzal, hogy a rossznak nincs arca, egyszeriben megfoghatatlanná és legyőzhetetlenné válik.

Hiányoznak továbbá ebből a regényből a drámai szenvedés képei. Mégpedig azért, mert ezekkel az emberekkel nem pusztán az történt, hogy megalázták és megkínozták őket. Hanem kiragadták őket abból az életből, amit kibrusztoltak maguknak, és belehajították egy teljesen ismeretlen létezésbe. A talajt tépték ki alóluk, és hagyták, hogy a semmiben lebegjenek. A bizonytalanság, vagy - Kertész szavával - a "sorstalanság" állapotába lettek belevetve: megtagadják tőlük, hogy amerikaiakká válhassanak, de megbüntetik őket, ha japánok maradnak. De ha se egyik, se másik, akkor mi marad? Így csinál az állam valakiből senkit.

[Barb H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am back for another taste of Julie Otsuka's writing. It's another trim one! She certainly has the knack of saying much with brevity and skill- and making her point (s)!

************************************

Many books have been written about the outrageous internment of Japanese Americans during WW II. There have been respectable treatments of this topic, such as Farewell to Manzanar, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Snow Falling on Cedars, to name a few. Julie Otsuka had given us a taste of this situation in her more recent book, The Buddha in the Attic . In this earlier novel, the reader learns about a family, whose names are never divulged, but whom we get to know well, from the period prior of their "exile" to their return home.

Otsuka has applied her unique, lyrical style to the telling of this tale. With spare elegance she conveys the indignities, the unconscionable treatments and the sense of total loss and despair that is felt by the victims of the internment. The attitudes of the general public, the government, neighbors and purported friends are all shockingly revealed. The fact that she is able achieve this so well in her slim offerings and also evoke emotional responses, such as tears, is admirable and a wonderment.

I eagerly look forward to reading future books written by this unique and gifted author.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

My, what a painfully raw, poignant, brief, yet eloquent period piece of story-telling, historical fiction, literary fiction, and ... social commentary (which, alas, is all too relevant today as the ugly head of populism and ignorant tribalism again rears itself and proclaims its message of hate and fear with a small-minded, yet full-throated, roar).

Sparse prose ... but a clear vision ... a splendid, effective, humane work. To the extent that research suggests that reading fiction enhances our capacity for empathy, this book seems to be an excellent anecdote for such a conclusion.

It's an easily digestible, short/quick book, but it's a slender package well worth your time.

I'm so pleased that I finally read this (even if I was late to the party), and I'd love to see it re-gain popularity and readership.

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the tragic and shameful removal/internment of Japanese in the U.S. during WWII is a factor in Otsuko's other two books, it is at the center of this, her first novel. In When the Emperor Was Divine, we learn about the affect this had on Japanese Americans (and the rest of society for that matter) through the eyes of members of one unnamed family in California. It is heartbreaking as the mother tells us about learning they were going to be removed from a notice at the post office, then scrambling to pack up their home and deal with their pets. No pets allowed where they are going! So many questions that she has to face alone as her husband has been previously arrested and is incarcerated in Texas. The teenage daughter and young son tell of traveling to Utah and living there for four years, basically prisoners in barracks. Finally, when they're back in their home, the father is released and returns. He voices the additional tragedy of men accused of spying and working for the enemy, Japan, men who came home greatly diminished. This was a beautifully written book about a horrific incident in U.S. history, made all that much more palpable given the focus on a particular family and how their lives were not just disrupted, but almost erased, and how they now face racism and lack of opportunity stirred up by this policy. A policy that made ordinary citizens the enemy.

I'm glad to have now read the three books written by Otsuko, each ten years apart. The rhythm that permeates Buddha and Swimmers shows up in the last part of this book, giving us a preview of things to come.

.Why I'm reading this: I recently finished Otsuko's The Swimmers and thought to read this, her first book, to see how her writing has evolved over the years. I had this in print, but saw the audio was available so thought I'd listen as I've done with The Swimmers and The Buddha in the Attic.

[Elham Asgari · Rating 3 out of 5]

طی جنگ جهانی دوم و بعد از حمله‌ی امپراطوری ژاپن به پرل هاربر در آمریکا در سال ۱۹۴۱، روابط بین دو کشور که تا قبل از اون هم تعریف چندانی نداشت عملاً وارد فاز جنگ شد. بعد از این حمله، دولت آمریکا به ریاست روزولت «انتقام» از ژاپنی‌ها رو موضع خودش اعلام کرد و رسماً درگیر جنگ جهانی دوم شد. این انتقام در نهایت فقط به میدان اصلی جنگ (بمباران اتمی هیروشیما و ناکازاکی) محدود نشد. در جریان این اتفاقات، عده زیادی از مهاجرین ژاپنی یا شهروندان ژاپنی‌تباری که در آمریکا حضور داشتند به جاسوسی متهم یا اسیر شدند. تقریباً همه‌ی اون‌ها به اردوگاه‌ها فرستاده یا برخی دیپورت شدند و مجبور شدند به ژاپن برگردند. آتش این انتقام حتی پس از جنگ هم ژاپنی‌ها رو رها نکرد. «امپراطور هراس» داستان یک خانواده‌ی ژاپنی در آمریکا طی جنگ جهانی دوم و پس از اونه. روایتی تکراری از رنج‌ انسان‌های بی‌گناهی که تاوان گناهان سیاست‌مداران رو با زندگی‌شون می‌پردازند.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I was pondering what to write about this slim, impressionistic book about America's internment of Japanese, including citizens, the leading candidate for one of the two major parties in the United States praised that painful and wrong-headed moment in our history. It is astonishing to me that anyone can think it acceptable for the national government to take any action on the basis of race or religion, and Julie Otsuka's book is a primer, not just on the venality but on the ineffectiveness of such projects. First is the wreckage suffered by a whole group, loss of job, family, opportunity, possessions. Second, is the disrespect--it is worth noting that a Japanese American unit was the most decorated, controlling for length of service and size, of any American military group in history; among its many accomplishments was saving the Lost Brigade surrounded by Germans. (Lest anyone think that the analogy to the current debate breaks down here, I have volunteered in refugee services, where I met Iraqis who lost their homes and their homeland and even saw members of their families murdered, all because they helped the American cause in their country). Then there is the loss to the nation, because of so many whose contribution was forfeited (though, Otsuka argues, individual Americans profited by seizing property from the absent Japanese). All of this Otsuka makes powerfully human not through a conventional narration, but through skillfully interwoven stories of nameless but individualized characters. Perhaps the most devastating part is the ending, a confession to all the national security offenses of which the Japanese were accused but that in fact none of them even thought of doing.