Meet Julie Otsuka

Register for the online author event

The NEA Big Read: King County event with New York Times bestselling author and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Julie Otsuka, originally scheduled on the Highline and Seattle Pacific campuses for March 9, will take place online Tuesday, May 19, 7–8:15 p.m. via Zoom. 

The event will be hosted by Tom Ikeda, executive director of Densho, a local nonprofit preserving and sharing the history of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Know someone interested in World War II history, local history, or reading and discussing great books? Share this information.

Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine (Knopf) won the 2003 Asian American Literary Award and the 2003 American Library Association Alex Award.

Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic (Knopf) was a finalist for the National Book Award 2011, won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and the 2011 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction.

The Buddha in the Attic was an international bestseller and the winner of the prestigious Prix Femina étranger 2012, and the Albatros Literaturpreis 2013.

Otsuka is currently at work on her next book — working title The Swimmers.