Monday, January 14, 2019

Kathy recommends Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

This is the epic story of four generations of a Korean-Japanese family beginning at the turn of the 20th century. In the early 1910s Japan occupied Korea. Sunja, the sheltered and beloved daughter of Hoonie and YangJin, is seduced by a wealthy, married older man. Pregnant, Sunja and her parents leave Korea and settle in Japan. The story unfolds as the family suffers from legal and social discrimination which was pervasive against the Koreans in Japan . Tragedies and joys unfold over the next eighty years. The author does a beautiful job of portraying each of the remarkable family members and their struggle to survive and prosper in a land that views them as outsiders. Historically accurate, this is a timely topic and a global view into the plight of immigrants who are born in a land previous generations adopted as their own, but are never fully accepted.

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