Julie Otsuka - When the Emperor Was Divine

I’m the slant-eyed sniper in the trees.

I’m the saboteur in the shrubs.

I’m the stranger at the gate.

I’m the traitor in your own backyard.

I’m your houseboy.

I’m your cook.

I’m your gardener.

And I’ve been living here, quietly, beside you, for years, just waiting for Tojo to flash me the high sign.

So go ahead and lock me up. Take my children. Take my wife. Freeze my assets. Seize my crops. Search my office. Ransack my house. Cancel my insurance. Auction off my business. Hand over my lease. Assign me a number. Inform me of my crime. Too short, too dark, too ugly, too proud. Put it down in writing— is nervous in conversation, always laughs loudly at the wrong time, never laughs at all —and I’ll sign on the dotted line. Is treacherous and cunning, is ruthless, is cruel. And if they ask you someday what it was I most wanted to say, please tell them, if you would, it was this:

I’m sorry.

There. That’s it. I’ve said it. Now can I go?

The author gratefully acknowledges the following works for their help in writing this book: The Great Betrayal: The Evacuation of the Japanese-Americans During World War II, by Audrie Girdner and Anne Loftis; A Fence Away From Freedom: Japanese Americans and World War II, by Ellen Levine; Citizen 13660, by Miné Okubo; Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz, by Sandra C. Taylor; and Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family , by Yoshiko Uchida.

Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is a graduate of Yale University and received her M.F.A. from Columbia. She lives in New York City.

FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, OCTOBER 2003

Copyright © 2002 by Julie Otsuka, Inc.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The chapter “Evacuation Order No. 19” appeared, in slightly different form, in Scribner’s Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998, edited by Carol Shields, John Kulka, and Natalie Danford.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:

Otsuka, Julie.

When the emperor was divine: a novel / by Julie Otsuka.—1st ed.

p. cm.

1. Japanese Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945—Fiction. 2. World War, 1939–1945—California—Fiction. 3. Japanese American families—Fiction. 4. Concentration camps—Fiction. 5. California—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3615.T88 W48 2002

813’.6—dc21 2002020814

www.anchorbooks.com

www.randomhouse.com

eISBN: 978-0-307-43021-2

v3.0

“Exceptional…. Otsuka skillfully dramatizes a world suddenly foreign…. [Her] incantatory, unsentimental prose is the book’s greatest strength.”

“Spare, incisive…. The mood of the novel tensely reflects the protagonists’ emotional state: calm surfaces above, turmoil just beneath.”

“A timely examination of mass hysteria in troubled times…. Otsuka combines interesting facts and tragic emotions with a steady, pragmatic hand.”

“Prose so cool and precise that it’s impossible not to believe what [Otsuka] tells us or to see clearly what she wants us to see…. A gem of a book and one of the most vivid history lessons you’ll ever learn.”

“With a matter-of-fact brilliance, and a poise as prominent in the protagonist as it is in the writing, When the Emperor Was Divine is a novel about loyalty, about identity, and about being other in America during uncertain times.”

“Shockingly brilliant…. It will make you gasp…. Undoubtedly one of the most effective, memorable books to deal with the internment crisis…. The maturity of Otsuka’s… prose is astonishing.”

“The novel’s voice is as hushed as a whisper…. An exquisite debut… potent, spare, crystalline.”

“At once delicately poetic and unstintingly unsentimental.”

“Her voice never falters, equally adept at capturing horrific necessity and accidental beauty. Her unsung prisoners of war contend with multiple front lines, and enemies who wear the faces of neighbors and friends. It only takes a few pages to join their cause, but by the time you finish this exceptional debut, you will recognize that their struggle has always been yours.”

“Heartbreaking…. A crystalline account.”