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Brief Description: "Karen Tei Yamashita deserves to be a literary household name."--Adam Morgan, Esquire's "Best Books of 2026" "Karen Tei Yamashita is one of the preeminent voices of Asian American literature." --Naomi Ellis, The Nation "A provocative symphony." --Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times "Yamashita, a storyteller of the first order, is having a bit of fun, often a lot of fun, with her subjects. In one chapter, she imagines two heroes of the Japanese American reparations movement discussing historic civil rights cases in the afterlife; in another, we hear the story of Harry Kitano, a pioneering social scientist and U.C.L.A. professor, narrated by his trombone." --Robert Ito, The New York Times Book Review "With Questions 27 & 28, Yamashita is not just seeking to interpret the loyalty debate, and perhaps the experience of internment, by writing fiction about it. She is also challenging her readers to do the interpreting themselves--to join her in deciphering history. . . . In order to read Questions 27 & 28, you have to commit, if only for the length of the novel, to the messy project of American history." --Lily Meyer, The Atlantic "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 "An ambitious novel that spans many forms, ably crossing oceans and centuries." --Kirkus Reviews "[ Questions 27 & 28] reveals a concealed corner of American history with depth and nuance." --Alta Journal "Now, at this very moment, our government is rounding people up, imprisoning and deporting them--immigrants, refugees, students, workers with legal visas. They are denied due process as the Constitution is being flouted. It is crucial that we read Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita. Learning what happened not that long ago to American citizens may help us know what actions to take now, legally, politically, heroically." --Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior and I Love a Broad Margin to My Life "With Questions 27 & 28, Karen Tei Yamashita expands the boundaries of the novel, achieving a polyvocal and multimodal environment within the act of engaged reading the work elicits. Questions 27 & 28 challenges the unconscionable incarceration of Japanese Americans with an intricate and intimate testament to the courage, dignity, and creativity of those who dared the alchemy of identity and the integrity of belonging." --Earl Jackson, Professor Emeritus, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan Publisher Marketing: 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.Review Citations:
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