When the Emperor was Divine
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When the Emperor Was Divine
submitted by nemiller on July 16, 2021, 8:35pm
There is writing advice out there (I can't find the quote, please comment if you know the source) that if you want your reader to understand a huge trauma, you can't write it on the large scale. You have to write about an individual affected by it for the reader to really feel it.
Otsuka tells the story of one family traumatized by internment, and its aftermath, through shifting perspectives within the family. Each chapter is a different member of the family. After reading one person's point of view, seeing that same person through someone else's eyes in the following chapter gave me a strange sense of distance, which paralleled the growing feeling of detachment the family felt.
I found it particularly powerful the different ways the story did, and did not, come full circle at the end of the book.
PUBLISHED
New York : Distributed by Random House, 2002.
Year Published: 2002
Description: 143 p.
Language: English
Format: Book
READING LEVEL
Lexile: 810
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
0385721811
0375414290 :
SUBJECTS
Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945 -- Fiction.
World War, 1939-1945 -- California -- Fiction.
Japanese American families -- Fiction.
Concentration camps -- Fiction.
California -- Fiction.