The Buddha in the Attic
By
Julie Otsuka
Read by
Samantha Quan,
Carrington MacDuffie
Release:
08/23/2011
Runtime:
3h 56m
Unabridged
Quantity:
“A lovely prose poem that gives a bitter history lesson.”
Kirkus Reviews
A Literary Hub Pick of the 20 Best Novels of the Decade
Winner of American Academy of Arts and Letters Lit. Award, 2012
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2011
Winner of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, 2012
Winner of American Academy of Arts and Letters Lit. Award, 2012
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2011
Winner of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, 2012
Winner of American Academy of Arts and Letters Lit. Award, 2012
Among shortlisted titles for National Book Awards, 2011
Winner of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, 2012
Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award
Julie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird” —The New York Times) is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago.
In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their 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; 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; 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 long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird” —The New York Times) is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides’ nearly a century ago.
In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their 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; 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; 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.
Release:
2011-08-23
Runtime:
3h 56m
Format:
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780307940742
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Praise