Min Jin Lee

Min Jin Lee is a recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim Foundation (2018) and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2018-2019). Her novel Pachinko (2017) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, a runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and one of the New York Times' "Ten Best Books of 2017." A New York Times bestseller, Pachinko was also one of the "Ten Best Books" of the year for BBC and the New York Public Library, and a "best international fiction" pick for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In total, it was on over seventy-five best books of the year lists, including NPR, PBS, and CNN, and it was a selection for Now Read This, the joint book club of PBS NewsHour and the New York Times. Pachinko will be translated into twenty-seven languages. Lee's debut novel Free Food for Millionaires (2007) was one of the best books of the year for the Times of London, NPR's Fresh Air, and USA Today, and it was a national bestseller.

From Lee's 2017 Q&A with Terry Hong for Bloom:

TH: Having left Korea at such a young age—your family immigrated when you were 7, yes?—in your daily life, how connected do you feel to Korea? Do you use your writing to ‘go back’?

MJL: I feel profoundly connected to Korea. My father was born in Wonsan, now in North Korea, and my mother was born in Busan, now in South Korea, and I add the word “now” because when they were young, there was only one Korea. I was born in Seoul, and I recall it very vividly. I admire Koreans and what Koreans have withstood as a people, and it is a culture of 5,000 years plus. I studied American history in college, and I love being an American, and I am proud to be an American, especially now, because I see the resistance in this country and the ability for dialogue, and it strengthens me. I think my connectedness to Korea is not just historical … it is necessary to feel a greater sense of strength when I feel lost in this country.

TH: Beyond the Korean/Japanese history, you also have multiple levels of immigration woven into Pachinko—from north to south, Korea to Japan, Japan to the US. Given the alarming changes happening since the presidential transition, your book is even more timely. What do you hope will linger with your readers once they finish?

MJL: I want my readers to see people like the people in my book as fully human, connected with history, persecution, and culture. I also want my readers to see that we were always here. What I found so moving was to know that it didn’t matter what the record said, because the record we have of history is incomplete. I think the record has to grow, and more voices have to witness. I do this in fiction, and it is a weird and odd thing, but I want the stories of very ordinary, unimportant people to reflect...[read on]

Visit Min Jin Lee's website.

--Marshal Zeringue