Novelist Julie Otsuka receives the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction

Thu, 03/29/2012 - 10:47am by sernabad

Julie Otsuka captured the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction for her novel, The Buddha in the Attic (2011) on Monday, March 26.

Ms. Otsuka, 50, brings to light Japan's 'picture brides', young women who are lured to San Francisco as mail-order wives for men who wooed them with letters and dishonest photographs. Otsuka tracks their difficult lives filled with impossibly hard work, less-than-happy marriages, children who turn their back on their Japanese heritage, and with the catastrophic attack at Pearl Harbor, the ultimate betrayal by their white neighbors.

Ms. Otsuka was selected from a group of five finalists including Russell Banks; Don DeLillo, Anita Desai, and Steven Millhauser.

The PEN/Faulkner award comes with a $15,000 purse.