Otsuka's (When the Emperor was Divine) latest novel paints a delicate, heartbreaking portrait of these women. ( Starred review.) In the early 1900s, numerous Japanese mail order brides came to America seeking better lives. Otsuka has created a tableau as intricate as the pen stokes her humble immigrant girls learned to use in letters to loved ones they’d never see again.” Celia McGee - Oprah Magazine Jane Ciabattari - San Francisco Chronicle The Buddha in the Attic seems destined to endure. The distillation of a national tragedy that unfolds with great emotional power. She conjures up the lost voices of a generation of Japanese American women without losing sight of the distinct experience of each. Otsuka combines the tragic power of a Greek chorus with the intimacy of a confession. Now she returns with a second novel, also employing a minimalist technique, that manages to be equally intimate yet much more expansive.

Proof arrived almost a decade ago.with the publication of her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, a spare but resonant portrait of one Japanese-American family's daily life, at home and in the internment camps, during World War II. Although Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California.she seems perfectly attuned to the spirit of sumi-e. Simplicity of line is prized, extraneous detail discouraged. N the Japanese art of sumi-e, strokes of ink are brushed across sheets of rice paper, the play of light and dark capturing not just images but sensations, not just surfaces but the essence of what lies within.

Review buddha in the attic