Pachinko (ft. Min Jin Lee & Ken Chen)

We're featuring audio from a 2017 event collaboration with the Tenement Museum. We celebrated the launch of author Min Jin Lee’s second novel Pachinko, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2017 and National Book Award Finalist. Pachinko follows one Korean family through generations. The story begins in Korea in the early 1900s and then moves to Japan. The family endures harsh discrimination, catastrophe, and poverty. They also encounter joy as they rise to meet the challenges their new home presents. Through desperate struggle and hard-won triumph, they are bound together by deep roots that are set as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity. Min Jin Lee reads from her novel and then is interviewed by Ken Chen, the executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop. They discuss her extensive research and interview process, how growing up in Queens, New York helped her write Pachinko, and much more. Watch the full event on our YouTube channel, as well as our other past events.