The Buddha in the Attic

by

Julie Otsuka

The Buddha in the Attic Study Guide

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Brief Biography of Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka is a Japanese American author who was born and raised in California. As an undergraduate, she studied art at Yale University and then pursued a career as a painter. Fifteen years later, she earned her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Columbia University, and in 2002, she published her first novel, When the Emperor was Divine, which won the Asian American Literary award, among other accolades. Otsuka’s second novel, The Buddha in the Attic, was published in 2011 and won the PEN/Faulkner Award and France’s Prix Femina Étranger, in addition to other awards.
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Historical Context of The Buddha in the Attic

The young Japanese women at the center of The Buddha in the Attic are a community of “picture brides”—women who, during the early 1900s, were married off to immigrant workers living along the American West Coast and in Canada, Hawaii, and Brazil. While the novel focuses on Japanese picture brides, brides of other ethnicities existed as well. Through the concept of the picture bride, male immigrant workers—who largely worked as cheap laborers on sugarcane plantations—were able to be matched with and sent a bride from their home country, with a matchmaker and the woman’s family facilitating the process. Many women fell victim to becoming a picture bride due to their families’ financial struggles, while others believed they would gain freedom and new opportunities in America. The novel also deals with the internment of Japanese people during World War II, a policy spearheaded by Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1942 to 1945. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into effect, which displaced approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent—the majority being American citizens—and incarcerated them in 10 major internment camps. Similar policies targeting Japanese people then came about in Canada and Latin America, all with the stated intent of protecting their respective countries from potential Japanese espionage.

Other Books Related to The Buddha in the Attic

Otsuka’s historical fiction highlights the stories of Japanese Americans during World War II. Her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, more directly explores the experience of Japanese internment by following a Japanese American family that faces incarceration. Published in 2022, Otsuka’s third novel, Swimmers, also explores the tragic memory of Japanese internment from the perspective of a woman battling dementia. Another novel that explores Japanese internment is Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, which sheds light on the experiences of Japanese Canadians who also faced incarceration during World War II. In Journey to Topaz, an illustrated book for younger audiences, Yoshiko Uchida portrays an 11-year-old Japanese girl’s time in Topaz, the same camp in which Otsuka’s family spent three years.
Key Facts about The Buddha in the Attic
  • Full Title: The Buddha in the Attic
  • When Published: 2011
  • Literary Period: Contemporary
  • Genre: Novel, Historical Fiction
  • Setting: California leading up to and during World War II
  • Climax: The government forcibly evicts the young Japanese women, their husbands, and children from their homes.
  • Antagonist: While this novel doesn’t have an antagonist in the traditional sense, the Japanese women face significant struggles against both their Japanese husbands and white American bosses.
  • Point of View: First-Person Plural

Extra Credit for The Buddha in the Attic

Personal Perspective. Otsuka’s mother, uncle, and two grandparents lived through the Japanese internment period in the United States. A day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested Otsuka’s grandfather, suspecting him to be a Japanese spy. Although Otsuka herself did not experience the internment camps firsthand, her mother, uncle, and grandmother were interned in Utah for three years.

Visual Art. Many critics remark that Otsuka’s background in visual art permeates her writing. The New York Times and Washington Independent Review of Books, for example, compare Otsuka’s prose in The Buddha in the Attic to the art of black ink painting and Japanese picture scrolls, respectively.