The book is based on Otsuka’s own family history: her grandfather was arrested by the FBI as a suspected spy for Japan the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, and her mother, uncle and grandmother spent three years in an internment camp in Topaz, Utah. It was a New York Times Notable Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers finalist. Her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, is about the internment of a Japanese-American family during World War II. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Asian American Literary Award, and the American Library Association Alex Award. After studying art as an undergraduate at Yale University she pursued a career as a painter for several years before turning to fiction writing at age 30. Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California.
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