Julie Otsuka

Born Palo Alto, California

Prize-winning writer Julie Otsuka posed for Philip Grausman when she was an undergraduate at Yale University and Grausman was on the faculty. Memories of growing up in California and hearing stories of her grandfather’s arrest after Pearl Harbor and the subsequent internment of her grandmother, uncle, and mother led Otsuka to write novels charting the experience of Japanese Americans. She has commented on the link between the “visual” characters that populate her novels and her training as an artist. Grausman’s graceful lines and delicate modeling capture a contemplative view of Otsuka, who describes her writing as “deeply internal.”