The Buddha in the Attic

"Julie Otsuka’s novel is an amazing first-person plural account of the mass migration of what were called Japanese ‘picture brides’ in the years leading up to, and during, World War II. It is a story about a group of women told in a voice that is quite unique—the voice of we. It is not a narrative of generalities. It is composed of composite individualities and particularities. It depicts what drove these ‘picture brides’ to leave Japan, what sort of lives they forged when they arrived and their internment during World War II. I’m always looking for the right form for a story. Usually I spend several years trying to write my stories and failing before I find the right form. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising East Asia had the form of a self-help book. It explains how you can get rich in rising East Asia, the self-help form frames the novel. There are multiple reasons I wrote it that way. “You see the rise of nostalgic, nationalistic, tribalistic movements in not just Afghanistan or Pakistan or Syria, but also in America and Britain.” Among those reasons was my desire to interrogate the notion that we read literature because it’s good for us, because it’s supposed to teach us about the world or about ourselves. If that is what literature is supposed to do, I thought: Why not be explicit about it? I also chose that form to explore whether self-help is possible through the practice of reading literature. So it is simultaneously a cynical examination of the way literature is marketed and a true believer’s exploration of what literature does for readers."