Explored from varying points of view - the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train journey; the son in the desert encampment; the family's return home; and the bitter re
The introduction, discussion questions, author biography, and suggested reading list that follow are designed to enhance your group’s reading of Julia Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine. We hope the
From the best-selling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine, comes a novel about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool―a tour de force of economy, precision, and emotional power.The swimmers are unknown to one another except through their private routines (slow lane, medium lane, fast lane) and the solace each takes in their morning or afternoon laps. But when a crack appears at the bottom of the pool, they are cast out into an unforgiving world without comfort or relief. One of these swimmers is Alice, who is slowly losing her memory. For Alice, the pool was a final stand against the darkness of her encroaching dementia. Without the fellowship of other swimmers and the routine of her daily laps she is plunged into dislocation and chaos, swept into memories of her childhood and the Japanese American incarceration camp in which she spent the war. Alice's estranged daug
Finalist for the 2011 National Book AwardJulie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what
