Cover of No-No Boy

No-No Boy

John Okada was born in Seattle, Washington in 1923. He attended the University of Washington and Columbia University. He served in the US Army in World War II, wrote one novel and died of a heart attack at the age of 47. John Okada died in obscurity believing that Asian America had rejected his work.

Read more

In this work, Okada gives the perspective of a no-no boy, a Japanese-American man who would neither denounce his Japanese heritage nor fight for the U.S. Army during WWII. This novel takes place after the main character spent two years in a Japanese internment camp, and two years in prison after saying no when asked to join the U.S. Army. Okada's novel No-No Boy shows the internal and external struggles fought by Japanese-Americans in that time period, be they no-no boys or not.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 260 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked No-No Boy? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked No-No Boy. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. American Knees Shares asian american, fiction, asian
  2. Bone Shares fiction, asian american, asian american lit
  3. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People Shares asian american, asian, asian american studies
  4. Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire Shares fiction, asian american, Japan

“People who read No-No Boy tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Nisei Daughter
  2. Hapa Girl: A Memoir
  3. Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale
  4. When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about diversity), start with these.”

  1. Black Rain
  2. One Man's Justice
  3. Fires on the Plain
  4. A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan

“If it was the asian american that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Eat A Bowl Of Tea
  2. Namako: Sea Cucumber
  3. The Floating World
  4. Why She Left Us

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Moved-Outers
  2. Thin Wood Walls
  3. Barbed Wire Baseball
  4. Paper Wishes