Keynote
A masterful polyvocal history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after World War II
Book Title
Questions 27 & 28
Subtitle
A Novel
Cover Image
“Most of us understand that history is often just the victor’s account of how things happened. But the novel’s achievement is that we are forced to experience this insight almost bodily. We feel the weight of the past, all these accumulated voices and perspectives, within and between Yamashita’s novels, as well as the process through which disparate stories, anecdotes, or experiences might coalesce as history.”—Hua Hsu, The New Yorker
Body
In February 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the secretary of war to remove 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast and corral them into inland concentration camps. To be considered for release, they were required to answer the so-called loyalty questionnaire. Question 27 asked the inmates—who had been imprisoned without cause by the US military—whether they were willing to serve in combat for the US military. Question 28 asked them—many of whom American citizens who had never visited Japan—to renounce allegiance to the Japanese emperor. Answering these questions caused volatile divisions within the camps, tore families and friends apart, and had lasting repercussions in the decades postwar.
Questions 27 & 28 reaches backward and forward from the time of the questionnaire, chronicling the individuals who arrived in the US from Japan at the turn of the century, their children who came of age during war and incarceration, and their descendants who lived in its aftermath. Yamashita mixes fact with fiction and layers genres from James Bond movies to haiku to oral history, transfiguring an enormity of archival research into a chorus of stories. With her signature wit and aplomb, she gives voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined an immigrant community.
Questions 27 & 28 reaches backward and forward from the time of the questionnaire, chronicling the individuals who arrived in the US from Japan at the turn of the century, their children who came of age during war and incarceration, and their descendants who lived in its aftermath. Yamashita mixes fact with fiction and layers genres from James Bond movies to haiku to oral history, transfiguring an enormity of archival research into a chorus of stories. With her signature wit and aplomb, she gives voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined an immigrant community.
List Price
$30.00
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About the Author
Credit: Chris Hardy
Upcoming Events
Karen Tei Yamashita reading and in conversation with Alice Yang about QUESTIONS 27 & 28 at Bookshop Santa Cruz
Date:
Location:
Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, CAview map
Free and open to the public. This event is co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz. Copies of Questions 27 & 28 will be available for purchase from Bookshop Santa Cruz. Click here to RSVP.
Praise
“Karen Tei Yamashita deserves to be a literary household name.”—Adam Morgan, Esquire’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
“A provocative symphony.”—Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
“In this innovative polyphonic novel, Yamashita blends archival documents with fictional flourishes. . . . The result is a powerful and lively novel that documents the turmoil endured by internees while raising enduring questions about identity, loyalty, and citizenship.”—Publishers Weekly
“Yamashita’s archival research is astonishing, weighted with polyphonic density . . . yet Yamashita ensures this is no database by quoting and extrapolating records, transcribing and elaborating conversations, and recording and inventing details to create extraordinary testimonies to injustice and resilience.”—Terry Hong, Booklist, starred review
