World Literature: Karen Tei Yamashita’s “Questions 27 & 28” with Anderson Tepper

Photo Credit: Chris Hardy. Photo Courtesy: Graywolf Press.

In 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the Secretary of War to remove 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast and place them in concentration camps. To be considered for release, they were required to answer the so-called “loyalty questionnaire.” Answering these questions caused volatile divisions within the camps, tore families and friends apart, and had lasting repercussions in the decades postwar.

In her new novel, Questions 27 & 28—named for the two most controversial questions in the form—Karen Tei Yamashita mixes fact with fiction to give voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined the Japanese American community post–Pearl Harbor. Question 27 of the form 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 were American citizens—to renounce allegiance to the Japanese emperor. 

“Most of us understand that history is often just the victor’s account of how things happened. But [Question 27 & 28’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…as well as the process through which disparate stories, anecdotes, or experiences might coalesce as history.”—Hua Hsu, The New Yorker

You can purchase a copy of Karen’s book, Questions 27 & 28, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

This program is followed by a public reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks for all artists and attendees. 

About the Author:

Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of nine books, including I Hotel, a finalist for the National Book Award. A recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, she is Professor Emerita of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

About the Moderator:

Anderson Tepper is a guest curator of PEN America’s World Voices Festival and a longstanding member of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Literary Council and international committee. Formerly of Vanity Fair, his writing on books and authors has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and World Literature Today, among other publications. Anderson also serves on City of Asylum’s Advisory Board.

About Your Visit: 

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