WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE

This novel is a little miracle of unsentimental strength. Julie Otsuka re-creates the Japanese internment camps of WWII with the precision of a fine jeweler. Minimal, almost flawless, the story follows an American-Japanese family uprooted from their home “for the sake of national security” and sent to an internment camp in Utah. By leaving the characters nameless, Otsuka connects all who have experienced persecution to this disgraceful episode in America’s past. Elaina Erika Davis performs Otsuka’s understated prose with delicacy and grace. In each of four points of view, she re-creates “the city of tar-paper barracks” with its barbed-wire fences, making utterly believable the family’s disbelief, disorientation, and alienation. As mother, daughter, son, and father reveal their feelings, Davis’s voice speaks volumes of innocence betrayed. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 04]