Common Reading Experience
When the Emperor was Divine
On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty internment camp in the Utah desert.
In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines.
For a research guide for "When The Emperor Was Divine," please see the link below.
Common Read Book Discussion
Come discuss the Common Read Book with some faculty & fellow students to prepare for the Common Read Author Visit. Snacks will be provided.
Common Read Book Discussion
Come discuss the Common Read Book with some faculty & fellow students to prepare for the Common Read Author Visit. Snacks will be provided.
Common Read Book Discussion
Come discuss the Common Read Book with some faculty & fellow students to prepare for the Common Read Author Visit. Snacks will be provided.
Julie Otsuka, Common Read Author Visit
Julie Otsuka, the author of this year's common read book, will be visiting campus!
2016
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
2017
Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries. Reyna's book is an eye-opening memoir about life before and after illegally emigrating from Mexico to the United States.