Novelist Min Jin Lee (‘Pachinko’) Has Something to Teach Us

“The rules of engagement have changed already.” Novelist Min Jin Lee (Pachinko) is a beacon of wit and wisdom. She returns to the show this week with American Hagwon, the long-awaited third installment in her Korean diaspora quartet. We begin with the ten-year process of writing American Hagwon (3:25), the thesis guiding the novel (4:00), and her experiences with education after immigrating from South Korea to Queens, New York (8:53). Then, Lee describes her process conducting thousands of interviews for the book (14:20), her relationship to security (18:18), and the staggering effects of media on young people (21:55). On the back-half, we talk about her years at Yale (32:58), how her legal training at Georgetown shaped her approach to fiction (44:32), and the risks of artificial intelligence (45:55). To close, Lee unpacks the dreams we defer for our families (1:10:22), her advice to “choose the important over the urgent” (1:20:07), and the premise for her next novel, Marshall Plan (1:26:30). Subscribe to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube channel⁠⁠⁠⁠. As always, our email: [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.