Today on Midday, Tom's guest is the award-winning novelist, Julie Otsuka.
She has published three critically acclaimed novels. Her first, When the Emperor Was Divine was published in 2002, and over the past 20 years, it has been chosen by more than 60 colleges and universities as a “campus reads” book, in which everyone at those institutions reads and discusses it.
In 2022, that same book was banned by the Muskego-Norway school district in Wisconsin.
Julie Otsuka’s second novel is about Japanese “picture brides,” who came to America in the early 20th century to wed men they had never met in person. It’s called The Buddha in the Attic, and it won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Her latest novel, published last year, is calledThe Swimmers. The story concerns a group of people who swim at a community pool regularly, and what happens when that pool develops a crack that no one can seem to explain. It’s also about dementia, and the complicated relationship between a mother and her daughter. And it’s about multitudes more.
The American Library Association awarded it the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Julie Otsuka is an artist who writes with power, elegance, and compassion, and The Swimmers is further testament to her extraordinary talents.
Ms. Otsuka joins Tom on Zoom from her home in New York City.
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Julie Otsuka will deliver the keynote address,
"An American Story: War, Memory and Erasure,” at Loyola University Maryland’s 2023 Humanities Symposium.
The address takes place this Thursday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m., in McGuire Hall (at the Andrew White Student Center) 4501 North Charles St., Baltimore, Md. 21210.
The event is is free and open to the general public as well as to the region’s academic communities.
To register for the event, click here.
The address will be followed by a book signing with Ms. Otsuka, with books available for purchase.
