No-No Boy
by John Okada
Five Stars: “For me, the discovery of John's
(Okada) 1957 novel was like a white writer feeling gloomy and alone
in a literary history, discovering Mark Twain. No-No Boy proved
I wasn't the only yellow writer in yellow history.” Thus wrote
Frank Chin in 1976, referring to the discovery of Okada's
ground-breaking novel in a second-hand bookstore in Seattle.
You
may have heard of the Japanese interment, yet you might not have realized the devastating effects of that interment on those
Americans victimized by it.
This
seminal contribution to Asian-American Literature opened my eyes.
Maybe, it'll open yours, too.
