From The Archives: Before ‘American Hagwon’, Min Jin Lee On ‘Pachinko’

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Following the much-anticipated release of Min Jin Lee’s new novel, American Hagwon, we revisit Dua’s July 2023 Book Club conversation with the author about Pachinko, which follows four generations of a Korean family as they navigate identity, displacement and belonging in Japan. At the heart of Pachinko is a question about the people history leaves behind. Through the immigrant experience, life as an outsider, motherhood, faith and the place of women in a patriarchal society, Lee examines the forces that shape a life, and the resilience it takes to find a place in the world. Dua and Min discuss the years of research behind the book and the craft of writing characters who are complex, flawed…