Book ReviewHistory
Pachinko: The Novel That Asks What We Owe the People Who Came Before Us
Min Jin Lee spent thirty years writing Pachinko. It covers four generations of a Korean family across the twentieth century, from a fishing village in 1910 to Osaka in 1989. It is one of the most important novels of the last decade. It is also, beneath its historical sweep and its moral seriousness, an extraordinarily intimate account of what it costs to survive in a world that has decided, before you were born, what you are worth.
SSon·Nov 13, 2025·13 min read