When the Emperor Was Divine

This book is a historical testimony, full of drama and mature wisdom. After the start of World War II, the ordinary life of ethnic Japanese in America was shattered. They became enemies of the state. Some were arrested, others were deported from the country, and others were interned in camps. This also happens with the heroes of Otsuka: the father was detained, while the mother and two children were sent to Utah, to a barrack behind barbed wire. But what happens next? Will the time of tender warm days, blue skies, and green lawns in front of the porch ever return, that dear everyday life whose value is only realized when you have lost everything? Reflecting on her family's past, Julie Otsuka skillfully shows how the heavy pages of history are overcome by life itself, in which there is everything: routine, fear, despair, beauty, and reunion after a long separation.