This episode contains explicit language.
You're listening to Book Exploder,
where authors break down a passage from their work to show us how they write.
I'm Rishi K. Shirwe.
And I'm Susan Orlean.
Today, Susan's speaking with Min Jin Lee, who wrote the novel Pachinko, which came out in 2017.
Min Jin Lee is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of South Korea's Manhae Grand Prize for Literature.
Pachinko is an international bestseller and was named one of the best books of 2017 by the New York Times,
the BBC, the New York Public Library, and more.
In 2022, it was adapted into an Emmy-nominated television series on Apple TV.
This is a four-generation story, and I love a book that takes on a big, sweeping, epic look.
at a family.
And it does that marvelous thing of talking about social conditions, and in this case,
this enduring bias against Koreans in Japanese culture,
but doing it through this very personal story.
And it's very emotional.
I cried in this book.
I've had this idea in my head for 30 years.
I worked on it off and on for over 20.
The idea for this book?