The Buddha in the Attic - Short Review

“The Buddha in the Attic” by Julie Otsuka is a strong, choral and hypnotic voice, choral and hypnotic tells the story of the extraordinary lives of thousands of women who left Japan to get married to Japanese immigrants in America. It is there on that very crowded ship that the young, oblivious girls, still full of hope, exchange photographs of their unknown husbands and imagine together the uncertain future in a foreign land. Those days, full of trepidation, were followed by their arrival in San Francisco, the first wedding night; exhausting work, bent to pick strawberries in the fields and scrubbing the floors of rich white women; the struggle to learn a new language and understand a new culture, the experience of childbirth and motherhood, with a commitment to raise children who will refuse their origins and history. And then the devastating arrival of the war, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and the decision of President Roosevelt to regard American citizens of Japanese origin as potential enemies and intern them in labour camps. From the very first lines, the collective voice created by the author draws the reader into a whirlwind of stories made of hope, regret, nostalgia, fear, pain, fatigue, horror and uncertainty, without ever offering any respite, bringing to life an essential and valuable story in an engrossing and emotional book.

Book chosen by the BritMums Book Club