Questions 27 & 28

by Karen Tei Yamashita

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.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, World War II, War, Japan, Literary Fiction

464 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2026

About the author

Born January 8, 1951 in Oakland, California, Karen Tei Yamashita is a Japanese American writer and Associate Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches creative writing and Asian American literature. Her works, several of which contain elements of magic realism, include novels I Hotel (2010), Circle K Cycles (2001), Tropic of Orange (1997), Brazil-Maru (1992), and Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990). Tei Yamashita's novels emphasize the absolute necessity of polyglot, multicultural communities in an increasingly globalized age, even as they destabilize orthodox notions of borders and national/ethnic identity.

She has also written a number of plays, including Hannah Kusoh, Noh Bozos and O-Men which was produced by the Asian American theatre group, East West Players.

Yamashita is a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award for I Hotel.

Reviews

[Matt Bender · Rating 5 out of 5]

Award quality. Questions 27 & 28 has a precise title but the narrative sprawls from before the Meiji restoration through the twentieth and across the pacific and national borders. The first section feels a bit overwhelming because it introduces many characters and is told in several narrative styles. There is no one voice in the novel as different migration stories are introduced and it felt like an arid, unwelcoming, and over complicated start for a reader. I enjoyed the pancho villa story but thought wtf are we in Mexico? Yet it’s structurally brilliant for obvious reasons. The next section of narratives starts with a pre-wwii mock naval battle by Japanese and American children (one of my favorites and is more traditional vignette that remixes the emotional tone). The angst increases with each story.

Blame for America’s concentration camps is placed in fear, ignorance, and distrust. In one of my favorite scenes, a young, confined mother talks with a young white social worker and we see a rare POV switch to those in power. She’s aware of the immediate problems and presented as well intentioned: “The lady doesn’t know Rosalie’s on her side. What side is that? She’ll have to find out. Rosalie scuffs the sandy soil under her boots and tries to decide on the correct attitude that will give her access to the room inside. Coyness might work with a man, but this woman will see through her ploy. A mixture of ingratiating stupidity requesting proper instruction, this might work.” To a degree, this helps mitigate history, but this frame of mind induces panic; this is the same way people might feel in the present. As we all know, Korematsu is still good law.

A timely novel that is formally bold and sensitive to the diversity of origin stories and experiences as well as the commonalities and structural ties between people.

[Monica | readingbythebay · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5. TY Graywolf Press for the gifted copy!


The most layered “novel” I’ve read in recent years, and maybe ever? Reading this is like taking an entire semester course on the history of Japanese immigration to America. There are a lot of voices, a lot of themes, and a lot to unpack. I enjoyed enjoying playing detective and piecing it all together, but ultimately I would have appreciated more explanation. There are a lot of really amazing ideas here but they never all came together into a “novel” which is what it calls itself!

[Celine Thormann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the most non-fiction like fiction novel I have ever read, and I wanted so badly to like it. It covers such an important and shameful and still too unknown subject from American history that is tragically still extremely relevant to this day, and it does it in a really unique way. Unfortunately, I think I would have preferred if this had been a straightforward nonfiction book. The fiction elements, for me, muddied the water, even when I enjoyed them. Like, I had fun in the James Bond type sequence, but I still have no idea what was going on during it. I also noted that you get about halfway through the book before you are ever told what Questions 27 and 28 were, so unless you had preexisting historical knowledge or had read the back cover, you would just be really, really lost. This is one of those books that I think would be better taught in a history class than an English class, as there is no hand-holding or exposition given about the historical context and the book assumes you already know quite a bit, or that you have an impressive talent for names and dates. I think this book would better serve as a companion to other informational texts about this subject, rather than an introduction/overview of the subject itself. This is an important topic to be informed about, so I’m grateful for what new information I was able to glean from this, but I would direct other learners to other resources first.

[Shana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a 4.5 rounded up to a 5 because I think it is incredibly well done but at the same time, I don't know that it will reach wider audiences because it is challenging on many levels. Karen Tei Yamashita digs deep into pre-WWII Japanese-American history through the war and beyond to create a complex narrative around the Japanese-American experience. Despite being fairly well-versed in these histories, I found myself having to Google various names and events. I bet there will be many a reader who will not even realize that these are real, historical figures! But seriously, look it up because it will reveal so much. I really liked how Yamashita utilized a large number of voices and experimented with different styles to give each part a distinct voice. At the same time, she succeeded in maintaining a strong connecting line throughout. This book is a college course in book form.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was truly a work of art. What Yamashita has done, weaving historical archival material as part of the story about Japanese Americans before, during and after WWII was so original and extraordinarily well done. And the so called loyalty questions put forth to Americans who were incarcerated in American concentration camps and how it splinted families and communities. This also depicts how the more time goes by, the more things stay the same. An important read especially in today’s times.

I received an arc from the publisher but all opinions are my own.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I started reading this book, I was initially confused. But I know just enough history to see what Yamashita was doing with this book and I appreciated it greatly. I confess that I ran out of time and didn't finish it, but after it is published I will get a hard copy and tackle it. It's a lot, but I feel like it could end up being one of the more important books published this year. I read enough to get that feeling and thus my five star rating.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It will be appreciated.

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is important. But, more to the point, it is really really good. Karen Tei Yamashita takes people reduced by the government to stripped-down, forgotten data and, with water and light, grows them into the beautiful irreducible stories they were meant to be.

"Answering yes-yes makes the game shorter," she writes, "but you don't necessarily get out or win."

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this up from the library, and glad I did. The idea of this is already a hell of a thing (go through the questionnaire results that were given in the Japanese concentration camps, find out loose biographical details around a given respondent, and write a short fiction piece based on the information she was able to find), but the blend of fiction and fact and the sheer range of genre she is able to cover with each piece is genuinely astounding. Highly recommended library read

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Question 27 & 28 is a difficult read and requires a certain threshold of trust from its reader. Upon reading the first few chapters, there is Japanese and each chapter can feel disjointed from one another, and it’s because Yamashita emphasizes how these people are each in their own separate worlds, but are then brought together through a shared history. It’s powerful, but I can also see how it may be intimidating. That being said, I would not describe Question 27 & 28 as a fun or entertaining read, but it is truly a force to be reckoned with. It’s like a trust fall. The novel invites confusion and discomfort and frustration, because you may feel unsure of where it is leading you, and there will be some flailing and Google searches, but if you trust in these characters and this history, it will catch you as it caught me.