THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTICa novelby Julie Otsuka

WHO:
Julie Otsuka

WHAT:
THE BUDDHA IN THE ATTIC
a novel

WHEN:
Published by Knopf August 29, 2011

WHERE:
Boston (10/16), Los Angeles (9/12, 9/16), New York (9/7, 9/26), Philadelphia (10/21), San Francisco (9/14-15, 9/19), Seattle (9/20-23)

WHY:
“Entrancing, appalling,
and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Julie Otsuka’s second novel tells the stories of Japanese mail-order brides at the start of the twentieth century in a first-person-plural narrative voice, the choral ‘we.’ This creates an incantatory and haunting group portrait of diverse women who make the arduous ocean journey to California buoyant with hope only to marry strangers nothing like the handsome young men in the photographs that lured them so far from home.
“Prejudice and hardship soon transform the brides into fingers-worked-to-the-bone laborers, toiling endlessly as domestic workers, farmers, prostitutes, and merchants. Every aspect of female life is candidly broached in Otsuka’s concise yet grandly dramatic saga as these determined, self-sacrificing outsiders navigate the white water of American society, only to watch their American-born children disdain all things Japanese.
“Drawing on extensive research and profoundly identifying with her characters, Otsuka crafts an intricately detailed folding screen depicting nearly five decades of change as the women painstakingly build meaningful lives, only to lose everything after Pearl Harbor…A lyrically distilled and caustically ironic story of exile, effort, and hate.”
—Donna Seaman, in a starred review for Booklist

“A remarkable achievement.
Otsuka’s prose is precise and rich
with imagery…beautifully rendered,
a delicate amalgam of contrasting
and complementary experiences.”
—Publishers Weekly

Media Resources:
About the book | Author bio | Download the jacket | Download the press release | Request a review copy knopfpublicity@randomhouse.com | Listen to the RH Audiobook:

Publicity:
Michelle Somers | 212-572-2082 | msomers@randomhouse.com