'Pachinko' author Min Jin Lee says writing 'American Hagwon' transformed her

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR's Book of the Day features an interview with acclaimed author Min Jin Lee about her latest novel, American Hagwon. The episode traces the Coe family's journey from

Key takeaways

• Min Jin Lee's novel American Hagwon follows the Coe family after the 1997 Asian financial crisis forces them from Seoul to Southern California.
• Lee defines hagwons as Korean learning centers, drawing parallels to American prep programs like Princeton Review and Stanley Kaplan.

Main topics

• Korean hagwons and cram school culture
• Asian financial crisis and immigrant economic mobility

Notable quotes

"the act of writing a book really will transform you. Like, I'm a different person than I was before I wrote the book."

Conclusion

Lee's novel offers a nuanced look at how economic displacement and educati

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. The author Min Jin Lee is entering that echelon of authors where a new release is an event. When her epic novel, Pachinko, came out in 2017, it got rave reviews from all corners of the literary world, got nominated for a National Book Award, and was turned into a TV show. Big shoes for the follow-up to fill. But judging by the reviews of her newest novel, American Hagwon, it looks like she did it. American Hagwon is about an upwardly mobile family who gets, let's say, economically destabilized. So it's time to start over. And the book asks questions about what does it take to make it? And is it really worth it? Min Jin Lee talks to NPR's Scott Simon after the break. Speaker 7 (0:47) Public media is no longer federally funded, but the NPR network remains yours in service to and powered by you. Keep public media public with a donation today at donate.npr.org. And thank you. Speaker 2 (1:03) In a war zone, reporting is a deadly gamble where you have to balance risk and reward. For one Fox News reporter, that calculation ended in tragedy. The Speaker 1 (1:13) home person would have been injured. Speaker 1 (1:18) Who's Speaker 2 (1:18) responsible for setting limits on reporting in a war zone when lives are on the line? Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. Speaker 6 (1:28) John and Helen Coe are comfortably upwardly middle-class family with their three children, Bo, D.H., and Mido. John's corporate job takes them to America, Australia, then back home to the South Korea of the early 1990s. But then John's working life takes a turn. The 1997 Asian financial crisis strikes. They leave Seoul for Southern California, a different culture with dazzling possibilities. But how do they place their children into the American dream? American Hogwan is the highly anticipated novel from the author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko. And Minjin Lee joins us now from our studios in New York. Thank you so much for being with us. Hi, Scott. Thank you so much for having me. And I guess we should explain what a hogwan is and what they mean to the Coes. A hogwan is Speaker 5 (2:22) the Korean word for a learning center. So although it can be a cram school for an entrance exam for a school, It's also a place where you could learn how to be a gourmet cook or to tap dance or to learn how to play piano. It is a very important part of Korean culture. And most people think that if they need to learn anything and not go to a traditional school or grad school, Speaker 6 (2:47) you go to a hagwon. John and Helen have to start over in Southern California, and it's painful to read about that. And the small apartment with linoleum floors that I think they say are possibly once yellow. What does that do to their confidence in themselves? Speaker 5 (3:05) Well, I think the experience of coming down in the