When the Emperor Was Divine

By: Julie Otsuka

Narrated by: Elaina Erika Davis

On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her house, 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 they 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.

©2003 Julie Otsuka (P)2003 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Alex Award Winner, 2003

"Exceptional...Otsuka skillfully dramatizes a world suddenly foreign...[Her] incantatory, unsentimental prose is the book's greatest strength." (The New Yorker)
"The novel's honesty and matter-of-fact tone in the face of inconceivable injustice are the source of its power." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mesmerizing." (The New York Times)

Unspoken history that is relevant today

Well written emotional and sad - a shameful part of American history- that needs retelling over and over lest we forget who we were are are

Beautiful, lyrical, haunting

This is a masterful and lyrical exploration of the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Through skillful use of point of view, the author explores this unimaginable chapter in American history through the eyes of multiple characters, including two young children. The whole novel almost feels like one long poem, gently gathering momentum until you realize you’re moving at breakneck speed.

Excellent

Fascinating book, couldn't wait to drive home to turn on the ipod and listen.
A classic

Great audio. Word for word from book. Sad story.

I was confused initially about the dog being killed. But it later made sense. Book is boring. Audio flows much better.

Human nature is to stereotype

Hard to resist the leap to compare this to the more recent horror of 9/11. How it must feel to be of Middle Eastern decent today. How it must have felt to be Japanese back then.
I do not say this to offend anyone, it could be said of any of us that someone of our race or country has done unthinkable things.
I think high school students would benefit from reading this book. Thank you

Moving

It is a shame that some schools are banning this book in the United States. We need to learn our history, all of it , or we will repeat it.

Japanese internment from viewpoint of young person

Still cannot quite understand why we did this to our own citizens. Last pages are the most powerful.

Amazing 😉 wow 😳

Must read for diversity. Trauma and a different perspective of another culture for stereotypes and biases that are so commonly accepted. Now seen from a wonderfully told story of the another story less heard and shared in common society

Sad but Good

No complaints on the book. Read it for school. Great narration and very interesting story.

Great book

Loved the history lesson of the internment camps for the Japanese. Very interesting and sad.