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Min Jin Lee - Novelist
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Min Jin Lee

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description Min Jin Lee Overview

Min Jin Lee is a Korean American novelist and essayist whose fiction examines migration, family, class, ambition, and the Korean diaspora. Her novels include Free Food for Millionaires, which follows young Korean Americans in New York, and Pachinko, a multigenerational account of a Korean family living in Japan. Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and was later adapted as a television series.

help Min Jin Lee FAQ

What is Pachinko about, and why is the title important?

Pachinko follows Sunja and several generations of her Korean family as they live through migration, discrimination, and changing identities in Korea and Japan. The title refers to the pachinko parlors that become an important economic thread in the family's life. [National Book Foundation biography](https://www.nationalbook.org/people/min-jin-lee/)

How is Free Food for Millionaires different from Pachinko?

Free Food for Millionaires, published in 2007, follows young Korean Americans and questions of class and ambition in New York. Pachinko, published in 2017, is a broader multigenerational story about the Korean diaspora.

Was Pachinko nominated for a major literary award?

Pachinko was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. It was also named one of The New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2017.

What screen adaptation brought Min Jin Lee's work to Apple TV+?

Apple TV+ adapted Pachinko into a television series that premiered on March 25, 2022. The series was created by Soo Hugh and uses Korean, Japanese, and English across its story.

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