{"product_id":"when-the-emperor-was-divine-9780385721813","title":"When the Emperor Was Divine","description":"\u003cb\u003eF\u003cb\u003erom the bestselling, award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers, \u003c\/i\u003ethis commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese American incarceration camps\u003c\/b\u003e that is both a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and a resonant lesson for our times.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, 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 are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty incarceration camp in the Utah desert. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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. \u003ci\u003eWhen the Emperor Was Divine\u003c\/i\u003e is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJULIE OTSUKA was born and raised in California. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her first novel, \u003ci\u003eWhen the Emperor Was Divine\u003c\/i\u003e won the 2003 Asian American Literary Award and the 2003 American Library Association Alex Award. Her second novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Buddha in the Attic, \u003c\/i\u003e was a finalist for the National Book Award 2011 and won the 2012 PEN\/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the 2011 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. \u003ci\u003eThe Buddha in the Attic\u003c\/i\u003e was an international bestseller and the winner of the prestigious Prix Femina étranger 2012, and the Albatros Literaturpreis 2013. She lives in New York City.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50581168685330,"sku":"9780385721813","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6b3cb036-735b-46ed-9c25-4191824b7908.jpg?v=1732013787","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/when-the-emperor-was-divine-9780385721813","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}