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In:Practising Stylistics: Essays in Honour of Paul Simpson
Edited by Clara Neary, Simon Statham and Peter Stockwell
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 45] 2026
► pp. 175–189

Chapter 14
The rhetoric of denunciation in Julie Otsuka’s Japanese trilogy

 | University of Lyon (Jean Moulin)
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Abstract
This chapter explores the thematic and stylistic coherence across Julie Otsuka’s three novels — When the Emperor Was Divine (2002), The Buddha in the Attic (2011), and The Swimmers (2022) — arguing that they form a unified trilogy chronicling Japanese American history and identity. Through a close examination of narrative voice, dialogic structures, and poetic symbolism, Manuel Jobert reveals how Otsuka crafts a ‘rhetoric of denunciation’ that exposes historical injustices while simultaneously engaging in ‘poetic mending’ akin to the Japanese art of kintsugi. The collective narrative perspectives, alternating viewpoints, and strategic use of first person plural not only underscore the communal nature of trauma and memory but also blur the boundary between group identity and individual subjectivity. Ultimately, Otsuka’s work transcends testimonial literature by transforming historical rupture into layered literary form, preserving the scars of cultural trauma while reimagining them as sites of artistic and ethical reckoning.
Article outline
  • From Japan, with love
  • Collective narrative voices
  • Conflictual dialogic discourse
  • Kintsugi 金継ぎ and poetic mending
  • A crack in the melting pot?
  • References
References (29)
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