Author: Julie Otsuka
Published: 2002 (2003 by First Anchor Book Editions)
Genre: Historical Fiction, 144 pages
Rating: 5/5
Sometimes a person likes to forget their own history. Sometimes a whole country likes to forget what their nation did in the past.
Concentration camps. This noun is often associated with the horrendous holocaust of Europe during World War II. But has the USA and the world forgotten about the concentration camps for Japanese Americans? Told in five points of view Julie Otsuka brings to life the painful mistreatment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in her novel When the Emperor was Divine. If you had Japanese blood you were a terrorist, a spy, an enemy.
This novel is so emotionally revealing I felt ashamed. Ashamed for what the USA had done and the fact I had forgotten. World War II is an old wound between the country I am from and the other country I am fascinated with. I prefer not to reopen it too deeply but Julie Otsuka's novel has bled the wound with just the right words. Not enough to cause a gush of blame but simply enough to remind the reader of our country's own mistakes in history.
(#9 of the 100 Book Challenge)
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