Book 0237
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Donated by Judith Staines, who says...
Based on a history many of us know little of in the UK: the sending of ‘mail-order brides’ from Japan to the USA in the interwar years to marry Japanese men settled on the Pacific coast. Forgotten voices, tenderly told stories and oblique perspectives of young innocent strangers utterly lost in a foreign land. After Pearl Harbour, the Japanese communities are forced to move inland due to US evacuation policies. It’s a wonderful poetic novel told in extraordinary style, beautiful, simple and complex. If you love this, also read When the Emperor Was Divine by the same author.