Min Jin Lee
A Korean-American author whose powerful novels explore themes of identity, family, immigration, and the Korean diaspora. Her acclaimed works, Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires, offer nuanced and moving portrayals of the challenges and triumphs of Korean immigrants across generations. Lee's insightful storytelling and richly drawn characters have established her as a significant voice in contemporary American literature.
A victorian epic transplanted to Japan, following a Korean family of immigrants through eight decades and four generations. Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story. Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.