Karen Maeda Allman, event coordinator and bookseller at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company, was interviewed by Elaine Ikoma Ko and featured on The North American Post and Discover Nikkei. Below is an excerpt. Let’s talk about your literary life. Did you always have a keen appreciation for books growing up? I actually started out as …
Julie Otsuka’s novels are literary gems, and Swimmers joins its predecessors—The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor was Divine—as a work of uncommonly lyrical beauty and pathos. The loss of a public swimming pool to a series of mysterious cracks developing on the bottom disperses a tight and quirky community of lap swimmers. …
“Julie Otsuka’s much-awaited second novel is a spare, poetic work told from the points of view of a wave of female immigrants. The author takes a risk, perhaps inspired by her real-life subjects, that more than pays off. We meet these women in their homes before they cross the ocean as Japanese picture brides, get …
