Language, culture and translation: an interview with Japanese American writer Julie Otsuka

Julie Otsuka is a Japanese American writer from California, USA. She is the author of When the Emperor was Divine (2002), her first novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011), winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, and The Swimmers (2022), her newest book. All of her novels revolve in some way around the experiences of the Japanese immigrants in the US, which reflect the lives of her parents and grandparents. After studying art as an undergraduate at Yale University, she pursued a career as a painter for several years before turning to fiction writing at age 30. She received her MFA from Columbia. Perhaps because of her acquaintance with art, her writing is described by New York Times as being close to the Japanese art of sumi-e, which encourages simplicity of lines and captures sensations of what lies within.NOtsuka is a recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Asian American Literary Award, the American Library Association Alex Award, France’s Prix Femina Étranger, an Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The following interview was carried out via Zoom on January 3, 2022, transcribed and edited in order to assist the reader’s comprehension. Based in New York City, Julie Otsuka graciously agreed to discuss topics related to her personal life, her writing, matters of translation and adaptation, as well as cultural and historical aspects of her life and work.