Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko (Feb 2017) is a national bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Great Reads. Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires (May 2007) was a No. 1 Book Sense Pick, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Wall Street Journal Juggle Book Club selection, and a national bestseller; it was a Top 10 Novels of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s Fresh Air and USA Today.
Min Jin went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York prior to writing full time.
She has received the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Her fiction has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and has appeared most recently in One Story. Her writings about books, travel and food have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, Vogue (US), Travel + Leisure (SEA), Wall Street Journal and Food & Wine. Her personal essays have been anthologized in To Be Real, Breeder, The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work, One Big Happy Family, Sugar in My Bowl, and The Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time. She served three consecutive seasons as a Morning Forum columnist of the Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.
Lee has spoken about writing, politics, film and literature at various institutions including Columbia University, French Institute Alliance Francaise, The Center for Fiction, Tufts, Loyola Marymount University, Stanford, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), University of Connecticut, Boston College, Hamilton College, Hunter College of New York, Harvard Law School, Yale University, Ewha University, Waseda University, the American School in Japan, World Women’s Forum, Korean Community Center (NJ), the Hay Literary Festival (UK), the Tokyo American Center of the U.S. Embassy, the Asia House (UK), and the Asia Society in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong. In 2017, she won the Literary Death Match (Brooklyn/Episode 8), and she is a proud alumna of Women of Letters (Public Theater).
From 2007 to 2011, Min Jin lived in Tokyo where she researched and wrote Pachinko. She lives in New York with her family.
Read for my book club. I can normally read a book in a day. This on took me 3. Fascinating to learn how Korean's were treated in Japan. Starts in the early 1900's and follows a family from Korea who migrates to Japan. Story ends in 1989.
This is a fiction account centered on one Korean girl and her progeny during the time frame 1910 to 1989...and frankly, It left me pretty depressed. Admittedly though, I learned a great deal about two Asian cultures (Korean & Japanese) that are unfamiliar to my experience.
외국사람이 쓴 것이 아닌듯 한 느낌. 정말 재미있네. 사건전개가 빨라서 속도감도 있고, "역사적 시대의 흐름을 타고 전개되는 책" 인데도 지금 내가 고민하는 문제인 먹고사는 문제에 관해 솔직하게 묘사되어서 흥미롭다. 특히 '노아'가 일본인이 되고싶다고 생각하는 점이 그러하다. '한수'가 배후에 있었던 점에서, 마치 소년만화처럼 계속해서 한단계 올라서며 인생이 그려지던 '선자'가 한 순간에 무기력한 애완동물로 전락해버리는 것 또한 닿는바가 크다.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
2부가 있을 거라고는 상상도 못했는데, 1부에서 선자의 이야기로 조용히 시작하는 부분이 마음에 들었다. 작고 평범한 시작 같았지만, 책을 읽다 보면 주인공의 선택과 강인함을 따라가면서 가족을 위한 희생, 그리고 불공평한 세상 속에서 버틴다는 게 어떤 의미인지 깊이 느낄 수 있었다. 감정을 억지로 끌어내지 않으면서도 여운이 진하게 남는 이야기가 2부를 바로 결제하게 만들었다
كتابة مذهلة أسرتني حتى الجملة الأخيرة من الكتاب. تعرفت إلى جانب جديد مما يسميه بعض المبهورين باليابان ( كوكب اليابان) من كاتبة غير يابانية. كان يمكن للترجمة أن تكون أفضل و لكنها على العموم جيدة.
This was a heavy one and a long one. Taught me a lot about the Korean/Japanese struggles that I had little knowledge about before. Parts of this book were really heartbreaking and I cannot stop thinking about it.
3.5점 정도 줄 것 같은 책. 우리나라의 일제강점기를 기반으로 한 고전적인 스토리. 새로운 장르의 책이며 부산이 배경이라 친밀감이 들었다. *성적인 장면이 조금씩 나타나는 것은 알아두면 좋을 법하다. (읽는 데 살짝 불편했지만 이런 장면들이 시대적 느낌을 살리는 데 보탬이 되었다고 생각한다.)