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When the Emperor Was Divine

Audiobook
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.

Expand title description text
Publisher: Books on Tape Edition: Unabridged
Awards:

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780385362498
  • File size: 98327 KB
  • Release date: January 29, 2008
  • Duration: 03:24:50

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9780385362498
  • File size: 98417 KB
  • Release date: January 29, 2008
  • Duration: 03:24:49
  • Number of parts: 3

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Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Fiction Literature

Languages

English

Levels

Lexile® Measure:810
Text Difficulty:3-4

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.

Expand title description text