Min Jin Lee

Min Jin Lee (born 1968) is a Korean American writer whose work frequently deals with Korean American topics.[1] She is the author of the novels Free Food for Millionaires (2007) and Pachinko (2017).

For the go player, see Lee Minjin.
In this Korean name, the family name is Lee.
Min Jin Lee
Lee at the 2018 U.S. National Book Festival
Born (1968-11-11) November 11, 1968
Seoul, South Korea
Alma materYale College,
Georgetown University Law Center
Min Jin Lee
Hangul
Revised RomanizationYi Minjin
McCune–ReischauerYi Minjin

Background

Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea. Her family came to the United States in 1976, when she was seven years old, and she grew up in Elmhurst, Queens, New York.[1] Her parents owned a wholesale jewelry store there. As a new immigrant, she spent much time at the Queens Public Library, where she learned to read and write.[2] She attended the Bronx High School of Science, and later studied history at Yale College in Trumbull College and law at Georgetown University Law Center. She also worked as a corporate lawyer in New York from 1993 to 1995 before quitting to focus on her writing. She lived in Tokyo, Japan, for four years from 2007 to 2011.[3] Lee resides in Harlem, New York, with her son, Sam, and her husband, Christopher Duffy, who is half Japanese.[4]

The works that most influence her as a writer are Middlemarch by George Eliot, Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac, and the Bible.[5]

Lee also served three consecutive seasons as an English-language columnist of South Korea's newspaper Chosun Ilbo's "Morning Forum" feature.[6]

She has also lectured about writing, literature, and politics at Columbia, Amherst College, Tufts, Loyola Marymount University, Stanford, Johns Hopkins (SAIS), University of Connecticut, Boston College, Hamilton College, Harvard Law School, Yale University, Ewha University, Waseda University, the American School in Japan, World Women’s Forum, the Tokyo American Center of the U.S. Embassy and the Asia Society in New York, San Francisco and Hong Kong.[7] She is currently the writer-in-residence at Amherst College in Massachusetts.[8]

Fiction

Short Fiction

Lee's short story Axis of Happiness won the 2004 Narrative Prize from Narrative Magazine.

Another short story by Lee, Motherland, about a family of Koreans in Japan was published in The Missouri Review and won The Peden Prize for Best Short Story. A slightly modified version of the story appears in her 2017 novel Pachinko.

Lee's short stories have also been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts.[9]

Free Food for Millionaires
Main article: Free Food for Millionaires

Her debut novel Free Food for Millionaires was published in 2007. It was named one of the Top 10 Novels of the Year by The Times of London,[10] NPR's Fresh Air, and USA Today; a notable novel by the San Francisco Chronicle;[11] and a New York Times Editor's Choice.[12] It was a selection for the Wall Street Journal Juggler Book Club,[13] and a No. 1 Book Sense pick. The novel was also published in the U.K. by Random House in 2007, Italy by Einaudi and in South Korea by Image Box Publishing. The book has also been featured on online periodicals such as The Page 99 Test,[14] and Largehearted Boy.[15]

A 10th Anniversary edition of the novel was released by Apollo in 2017.[16]

Pachinko
Main article: Pachinko (novel)

In 2017 Lee released a novel entitled Pachinko, which is an epic historical novel following characters from Korea who eventually migrate to Japan. It is the first novel written for an adult, English-speaking audience about Japanese Korean culture.[17] The book received strong reviews including those from The Guardian,[18] NPR,[19] The New York Times,[20] The Sydney Morning Herald,[21] The Irish Times,[22] and Kirkus Reviews[23] and is on the "Best Fiction of 2017" lists from Esquire,[24] Chicago Review of Books,[25] Amazon.com,[26] Entertainment Weekly, the BBC,[27] The Guardian,[28] and Book Riot.[29] In a Washington Post interview, writer Roxane Gay called Pachinko her favorite book of 2017.[30] The book was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.[31]

Pachinko was a 2017 finalist for the National Book Award for fiction.[32]

Non-Fiction

Lee has also published non-fiction in periodicals such as the Times of London, the New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, the Wall Street Journal and Food & Wine.

Reviews

Lee has written a number of reviews. She most recently wrote a review of Toni Morrison's Home in The Times of London,[33] and also a review in the Times of London of March Was Made of Yarn, edited by David Karashima and Elmer Luke, a collection of essays, stories, poems and manga made by Japanese artists and citizens in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[34] She also wrote Times of London reviews of Cynthia Ozick's Foreign Bodies[35] and Jodi Picoult's Wonder Woman: Love and Murder.[36]

Essays

Her essays include "Will", anthologized in Breeder – Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers (Seal Press Books, 2001) and "Pushing Away the Plate" in To Be Real (edited by Rebecca Walker) (Doubleday, 1995). Lee also published a piece in the New York Times Magazine entitled "Low Tide", about her observations of the survivors of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[37] She wrote another essay entitled Up Front: After the Earthquake in Vogue, reflecting upon her experiences living in Japan with her family after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.[38] Lee has also written two other essays in Vogue, including Weighing In (2008) and Crowning Glory (2007).

An essay entitled "Reading the World" that Lee wrote appears in the March 26, 2010, issue of Travel + Leisure.[39] She also wrote an article profiling the cuisine and work of Tokyo chef Seiji Yamamoto in Food & Wine.[40] She has also written a piece for the Barnes & Noble review entitled Sex, Debt, and Revenge: Balzac’s Cousin Bette.[41]

Her interviews and essays have also been profiled in online periodicals such as Chekhov's Mistress ("My Other Village: Middlemarch by George Eliot"),[42] Moleskinerie ("Pay Yourself First"),[43] and ABC News ("Biblical Illiteracy or Reading the Bestseller").[44]

Other essays by Lee have been anthologized in The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Works, Why I’m A Democrat (Ed. Susan Mulcahy), One Big Happy Family, Sugar in my Bowl and Global and the Intimate: Feminism in Our Time.

Bibliography

Short stories

Novels
  • Free Food for Millionaires (2007), ISBN 978-0-446-58108-0.
  • Pachinko (2017), Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 978-1-455-56393-7

Accolades

She received the NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts) Fellowship for Fiction, the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review for Best Story, and The Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer.[45]

While at Yale, she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction.[46]

In 2017, Lee was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction for her novel Pachinko.[32] That book was runner-up in the 2018 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Fiction.[47]

References
  1. "Min Jin Lee", KQED Arts, archived from the original on 2018-02-26, retrieved 2011-09-29
  2. Queen's Library. "An Interview with Min Gin Lee: Bestselling Author of Pachinko". Queen's Library Youtube. Queen's Library. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  3. "Min Jin Lee". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  4. Leonard, Sue (2017-08-21). "Min Jin Lee". Sue Leonard. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
  5. Queen's Library. "An Interview with Min Jin Lee, the Bestselling Author of Pachinko". Queen's Library Youtube. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  6. MinJinLee.com, "Being A Columnist" Archived 2014-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
  7. MinJinLee.com, About
  8. "Min Jin Lee on Moving to Boston". Amherst College. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
  9. Ginny Too, Interview: Min Jin Lee, Asian American Writer's Workshop, "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-07-05. Retrieved 2007-07-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. Saunders, Kate (2007-11-30), The Times Christmas choice: fiction, London: The Times, retrieved 2009-01-03.
  11. Villalon, Oscar (2007-12-23), "Bay Area authors' books among best of '07", San Francisco Chronicle, retrieved 2009-01-03.
  12. Politkovskaya, Anna (2007-07-08), Editor's Choice, New York Times, retrieved 2009-01-03.
  13. Schaefer Munoz, Sara (2008-01-22), "Free Food for Millionaires: When Everyone Else is a Big Spender", Wall Street Journal, retrieved 2009-01-03.
  14. http://page99test.blogspot.com/2007/07/min-jin-lees-free-food-for-millionaires.html
  15. Min Jin Lee – Free Food for Millionaires, Largeheartedboy.com.
  16. James Kidd, Book review: Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires, a modern-day Middlemarch but more fun, gets deserved re-release, South China Morning Post, August 21, 2017.
  17. PBS. "Min Jin Lee. 2017 Miami Book Fair". pbs.org. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  18. Aw, Tash (15 March 2017). "Pachinko by Min Jin Lee review – rich story of the immigrant experience". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017.
  19. Zimmerman, Jean (7 February 2017). "Culture Clash, Survival And Hope In 'Pachinko'". National Public Radio (NPR). Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  20. Lee, Krys (2 February 2017). "Home but Not Home: Four Generations of an Ethnic Korean Family in Japan". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 October 2017.
  21. Craven, Peter (4 August 2017). "Pachinko review: Min Jin Lee's saga of Koreans in Japan is hard to put down". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  22. Boyne, John (5 August 2017). "Pachinko review: a masterpiece of empathy, integrity and family loyalty". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 11 August 2017.
  23. "An absorbing saga of 20th-century Korean experience, seen through the fate of four generations". Kirkus Reviews. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  24. Ledgerwood, Angela (7 September 2017). "The Best Books of 2017 (So Far)". Esquire. Archived from the original on 3 October 2017.
  25. Morgan, Adam (28 June 2017). "The Best Fiction Books of 2017 So Far". Chicago Review of Books. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017.
  26. "Best Books of the Year So Far: Literature & Fiction". Amazon.com. 5 October 2017. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  27. Ciabattari, Jane (16 December 2016). "Ten books to read in 2017". BBC News. Archived from the original on 15 January 2017.
  28. Aw, Tash (9 July 2017). "Best holiday reads 2017, picked by writers – part two". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017.
  29. Nicolas, Sarah. "Best Books of 2017 (So Far)". Book Riot. Archived from the original on 14 July 2017.
  30. Haupt, Angela (31 August 2017). "8 authors coming to the National Book Festival tell us the best thing they read this year". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017.
  31. "The 10 Best Books of 2017". New York Times. 30 November 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  32. "2017 National Book Award finalists revealed". CBS News. October 4, 2017. Retrieved 2017-10-04.
  33. Min Jin Lee, "Home by Toni Morrison" (review), The Times, 21 April 2012.
  34. Min Jin Lee, March Was Made of Yarn: edited by David Karashima and Elmer Luke (review), The Times.
  35. Min Jin Lee, Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (review), The Times, 11 June 2011.
  36. Min Jin Lee, "Wonder Woman: Love and Murder by Jodi Picoult" (review), The Times.
  37. Min Jin Lee, "Low Tide", New York Times, February 26, 2012.
  38. Min Jin Lee, "Up Front: After the Earthquake", Vogue, April 21, 2011.
  39. Min Jin lee, Reading the World, http://minjinlee.com/images/uploads/Journal.pdf Archived 2014-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
  40. Min Jin Lee, "Why Star Chefs Revere Seiji Yamamoto".
  41. Min Jin Lee, "Sex, Debt, and Revenge: Balzac’s Cousin Bette" Archived 2009-04-17 at the Wayback Machine, Barnes & Noble Review.
  42. Min Jin Lee, "My Other Village: Middlemarch by George Eliot" Archived 2014-02-21 at the Wayback Machine (excerpt).
  43. Min Jin Lee, "Pay Yourself First", Moleskinerie.
  44. Min Jin Lee, "Biblical Illiteracy or Reading the Bestseller".
  45. Min Jin Lee, About the Author. Archived 2007-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
  46. Hachette Book Group USA, Author: Min Jin Lee, "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-06-14. Retrieved 2007-07-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  47. "2018 winners". Dayton Peace Prize. September 17, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
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