The latest book from the BritMums book club was The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. It’s a very short novel but utterly absorbing so I read it in a couple of days.
Between the wars a group of young, non-English speaking Japanese women travelled by boat to America. They were picture brides, clutching photos of husbands-to-be whom they had yet to meet. Julie Otsuka tells their extraordinary, heartrending story in this spellbinding and poetic account of strangers lost and alone in a new and deeply foreign land.
This was a new subject to me, one which I knew nothing about, but I didn’t find it difficult to imagine myself there. The story is told through many voices rather than one and this means you hear a range of experiences. Each chapter tells of their experiences with child birth and children, their husbands, work and racism.
The book ends with the banishment of the Japanese after the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. I never knew this happened and I really sympathised with the women who had to leave behind everything they had worked so hard for.
The author’s other novel, When The Emperor was Divine, follows on with the story from the view of one family. I think I will have to buy this as I can’t stop thinking about the story, surely the sign of a great book.