Talking Volumes: Min Jin Lee on 'American Hagwon'

About this episode

Min Jin Lee was disappointed she didn’t get to come to Talking Volumes in 2017 to talk about her novel “ Pachinko .” She says that’s probably because it struggled initially. Her editor quit just three months before the book was published. Her husband lost his job the day “Pachinko” was released. And besides The New York Times and USA Today, no media companies would review her book. But that slow burn eventually ignited into a blazing inferno. The New York Times named it one of the 10 best books of 2017 and, by 2022, it had been made into a TV series by Apple — which propelled another waves of global sales. So it was with great pleasure that Lee came to Talking Volumes this year, to talk…