Poets & Writers Theater

“I should share with you that I did not intend to be a fiction writer, I did not intend to write a historical novel…I did intend to always, however, tell the truth,” says Min Jin Lee about writing her novel Pachinko (Grand Central Publishing, 2017), which has been adapted into a television series, in this 2018 reading and conversation with Claire Messud at Harvard University.

Based on the best-selling historical novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko is an eight-episode series that follows a Korean immigrant family across four generations. The highly anticipated Apple TV+ series stars Yuh-Jung Youn, Lee Minho, Jin Ha, and Minha Kim and will be told in three languages—Korean, Japanese, and English.

“Fiction has the ability to expand people’s points of view, and also to have the contradictions...” In this video, Min Jin Lee answers questions from readers about her novel Pachinko (Grand Central Publishing, 2017) for PBS NewsHour’s Now Read This book club, a partnership with the New York Times.

“I wanted very much to write an accurate historical novel because I was so troubled about how hate can operate in our hearts.” Min Jin Lee introduces herself and talks about the impetus for her second novel, Pachinko (Grand Central Publishing, 2017), a story that follows four generations of a Korean immigrant family in twentieth-century Japan.