Citizen 13660 and When The Emperor Was Divine: Style

The style that the two others choose to write their books was quite interesting and is what really set them apart. “When The Emperor Was Divine”, was a book that was written off of factual information, history, and stories that the author had heard from relatives that actually were placed in the holding camps. “Citizen 13660” was different in that the author was telling readers about her own personal experiences in the camps. The way that they books are written are so different because of the personal experiences that the two women have gone through. Since their personal experiences are so different, with some minor similarities, the two others were bound to have taken on two completely different writing styles.

“When The Emperor Was Divine” was written more like a novel, with a plot with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. The second book was a picture novel but was very factual. It was written all off of the authors experiences while in the camps with minimum background information and ends abruptly with the author being released from the camp. The two different styles also probably have a lot to do with how the two authors handle the trauma and violence of the camps. Otsuka is able to write in a more “story- like” way because she did not experience these horrors personally and may have made it easier to write a book with a lot of details and additional information. Okubo experienced everything in her book first hand, and may have wanted to stick to the bare facts, avoiding a lot of personal or familial background. It is tough to say if these are the real reasons why the others choose these styles of writing, but in either case there was a lot of overlap in historical details and both effectively got the message across about how horrible these camps were.