Questions 27 & 28
Historical fiction usually takes for granted the existence of something called 'history' ... Questions 27 & 28 is a work of fiction about the nature of history, and about the mechanics by which we come to know anything reliable about the past in the first place ... Sprawling and overwhelming ... A novel about writers writing or researchers digging through archives runs the risk of tedium. But Yamashita is at her best when she zooms out of such small moments and meditates on the greater stakes of these scattered lives ... Wondrous.
Read Full Review >>
A sprawling exploration ... Richly creative ... Yamashita’s mixture of archival material and original fiction can be disorienting, and so can the book’s cacophony of voices ... Yamashita’s intention isn’t to connect the dots for us ... She layers and juxtaposes ... Excitingly messy ... In the novel’s more than 400 pages, only one line rang false.
Read Full Review >>
Told in many voices and with a sprawling dramatis personae, Yamashita’s novel steps in and out of several genres in both Japanese and English ... An ambitious novel that spans many forms, ably crossing oceans and centuries.
Read Full Review >>
