Julie Otsuka

These beautiful, passionate accounts make up an immensely powerful short novel about the Japanese American experience in World War II.

This title is winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction 2012 and Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award, and the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In eight incantatory sections, "The Buddha in the Attic" traces the women's extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women in their homes; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; and, to the deracinating arrival of war. In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream

Julie Otsuka's "The Buddha in the Attic", the follow-up to "When the Emperor Was Divine" was shortlisted for the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and winner of the Pen Faulkner Award for Fiction 2012. Between the first and second world wars a group of young, non-English-speaking Japanese women travelled by boat to America. They were picture brides, clutching photos of husbands-to-be whom they had yet to meet. Julie Otsuka tells their extraordinary, heartbreaking story in this spellbinding and poetic account of strangers lost and alone in a new and deeply foreign land. "Sweeping, symphonic, empathic ...subtle, infinitely skilful ...an exhilarating, compulsive read. Otsuka's haunting, heartbreaking conclusion, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, is faultless". ("Daily Mail"). "A tender, nuanced, empathetic exploration of the sorrows and consolations of a whole generation of women ...the distaff equivalent of a war memorial". ("Daily Telegraph"). "A haunting and heartbreaking look at the immigrant experience...Otsuka's keenly observed prose manages to capture whole histories in a sweep of gorgeous incantatory sentences". ("Marie Claire"). "An understated masterpiece ...she conjures up the lost voices of a generation of Japanese American women without losing sight of the distinct experience of each". ("San Francisco Chronicle"). Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is the author of the novel "When the Emperor Was Divine", and a recipient of the Asian American Literary Award, the American Library Association Alex Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Her second novel, "The Buddha in the Attic", was nominated for the 2011 National Book Award. She lives in New York City. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Exquisite The New York Times A tale of grief and memory awash with dark humour and wit Spectator Up there she says I m just another little old lady But down here at the pool I m myself For the people who swim there each day the local pool is a haven of unexpected kinship and private solace For Alice her daily laps have become the ritual that gives her life meaning even though she may not remember the combination to her locker or where she put her towel But one day a crack appears deep beneath the surface of the water and then another and then another The pool must close for repairs and with that Alice is plunged into dislocation and chaos Away from the steady routines of her swimming she is engulfed by difficult memories of her own past And as her sense of home and of herself slip further out of her grasp her daughter must navigate the newly fractured landscape of their relationship From the internationally bestselling author of The Buddha in the Attic comes a novel about memory and loss mothers and daughters the stories that make up a life and what happens when they start to unravel

En un día soleado de 1942, en California, una mujer se detiene ante un cartel en la oficina de correos. Después de leerlo, regresa inmediatamente a casa y comienza a preparar un equipaje con todas sus pertenencias. El gobierno de Estados Unidos la ha declarado a ella y a su familia, como a otros miles de americanos de origen japonés, «enemigos» en su propio país y están a punto de ser arrancados de su hogar. Un campo de internamiento, en el desierto de Utah, les espera. Julie Otsuka narra la historia de una familia a través de cinco emotivas vivencias: la de la madre recordando el día que tuvieron que partir, el largo viaje en tren de la hija, el confinamiento en el desierto que relata el hijo, el retorno de la familia a su hogar y la amarga puesta en libertad del padre después de su cautiverio. Cuando el emperador era Dios nos recuerda el destino de quienes, durante años, se convirtieron en invisibles.

«Algunas éramos de Kioto. Algunas éramos de Nara.Algunas éramos de una pequeña aldea montañosa. Algunaséramos de Tokio. Algunas éramos de Hiroshima. La másjoven de nosotras tenía doce años. La mayor

«Algunas éramos de Kioto. Algunas éramos de Nara. Algunas éramos de una pequeña aldea montañosa. Algunaséramos de Tokio. Algunas éramos de Hiroshima. La másjoven de nosotras tenía doce años. La mayor

La galardonada autora bestseller nos brinda una historia única, que nos recuerda la capacidad del alma para conmoverse."Un extraordinario examen de la fragilidad de las relaciones humanas cotidianas." BooklistUna madre, una hija, y la aparicion de una grieta en sus vidas.Los nadadores van y vienen en el agua. No saben que su rutina personal, privada y silenciosa, es una pieza fundamental de un engranaje invisible y siempre en equilibrio. De pronto, una grieta aparece en el fondo de la piscina. Expulsados del agua, arrojados a un mundo seco, deberan afrontar la realidad. Y tambien tendra que hacerlo Alice, cuyos recuerdos se empañan cada vez mas. El agua era la ultima defensa. Ahora su hija ha vuelto, para ser testigo de las propias grietas en su relacion y para compartir ese vinculo entre madre e hija que nunca entendieron ni supieron que existia. La autora de Buda en el atico y Cuando el emperador era Dios nos regala esta historia intima y apasionante que supone un homenaje a las experiencias de una vida, a todo aquello que se recuerda y a lo que se acaba perdiendo.Han dicho:"Otsuka trata con finura una historia de resistencia que resulta ejemplar." Babelia, de El Pais