Julie Otsuka was born and raised in California. Her elegant, brief, lyrical novels have won her legions of readers and the admiration of fellow writers. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and Her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine, published in 2002, received the Asian American Literary Award and the American Library Association Alex Award. Her second novel, The Buddha in the Attic, published in 2011, was an international best seller and won the Prix Fémina Étranger and the Albatross Literaturpreis, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Swimmers, was published in 2022. She lives in New York City.
