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Pachinko

The New York Times Bestseller

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Pachinko

By: Min Jin Lee
Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
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Bloomsbury presents Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, read. by Allison Hiroto.

* The million-copy bestseller*
* National Book Award finalist *
* An instant New York Times Bestseller and one of their 10 Best Books of 2017 *
* Selected for Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club *

'This is a captivating book... Min Jin Lee's novel takes us through four generations and each character's search for identity and success. It's a powerful story about resilience and compassion' BARACK OBAMA.

Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife.

Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story.

Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.©2017 Min Jin Lee 20th Century Family Life Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins United States World Literature Marriage
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Critic reviews

Luminous... a powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world' (Junot Diaz)
Gripping... a stunning achievement, full of heart, full of grace, full of truth' (Erica Wagner)
A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century (David Mitchell, Guardian)
A rich, moving novel about exile, identity and the determination to endure
Vivid and immersive, Pachinko is a rich tribute to a people that history seems intent on erasing
The work of a writer in complete control of her characters and her story and with an intense awareness of the importance of her heritage... Told with such flair and linguistic dexterity that I found myself unable to put it down. Every year, there are a few standout novels that survive long past the hype has died down and the hyperbolic compliments from friends scattered across the dust jacket have been forgotten. Pachinko, a masterpiece of empathy, integrity and familial loyalty, will be one of those novels' (John Boyne, Irish Times)
We never feel history being spoon-fed to us: it is wholly absorbed into character and story, which is no mean feat for a novel covering almost a century of history
An epic, multi-generational saga
A great book, a passionate story, a novel of magisterial sweep. It's also fiendishly readable – the real deal. An instant classic, a quick page-turner, and probably the best book of the year (Darin Strauss, New York Times-bestselling author of Chang and Eng.)
A long, complex book, it wears its research lightly, and is a page-turner. You can sense the author's love and understanding for all the characters, the good and the flawed
Remarkable... A striking introduction to lives, to a world, [the reader] may never have seen, or even thought to look at. In our increasingly fractured and divisive times, there can be no higher purpose for literature: all in the pages of a book that, once you've started, you'll simply be unable to put down'
Elegant and soulful, both intimate and sweeping. This story of several generations of one Korean family in Japan is the story of every family whose parents sacrificed for their children, every family whose children were unable to recognize the cost, but it's also the story of a specific cultural struggle in a riveting time and place. Min Jin Lee has written a big, beautiful book filled with characters I rooted for and cared about and remembered after I'd read the final page (Kate Christensen, award-winning author of The Great Man and Blue Plate Special)
All stars
Most relevant
This is an immersive listen. I learned a lot about the relationship between Korea and Japan.

Immersive story

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Story Telling like Ive never heard before! The Characters shines through with the back drop of history. As a person who knows nothing about Japanese and Korean hiatory. Im fascinated and want to know more!

Astounding. Im sure Ill listen to this another 3 times!

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Read beautifully and touching emotional story.Lovely insight to life for Koreans living in Japan.Enjoyed listening.

Beautiful Read

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It replaces conventional plot twists with events that unfold as they would in reality—sudden, unplanned, and often unresolved. Characters make decisions under pressure, without full knowledge of the consequences, and those choices ripple across generations. Outcomes are shaped less by intention and more by external forces such as social status, discrimination, and historical context. The narrative avoids dramatic buildup, making pivotal moments feel abrupt yet authentic. This creates a sense that life is not controlled by clear arcs, but by circumstance and adaptation. Ultimately, the novel reflects how people endure and adjust within systems they cannot fully influence.

life-driven unpredictability

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This was such a great generational novel. The themes discussed were so relevant to modern events and the characters left a mark. What a good storyline!

Historical novel

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