Pachinko
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a story of a Korean family spanning over the 20th century as they grow through different world events, including The Depression Era, Imperial Japan, and the World Wars. This epic follows Sunja as she grows from a toddler into an old woman, focusing on her story and how her life influences that of her family. This story begins before the birth of the main character, we meet Sunja’s parents as they begin their family, Sunja is born and we watch her grow up in the early-mid 1900s. We see the impacts of the depression era that followed the First World War on their family-run business. The character Koh Hansu is introduced as an older man who begins to fall for young Sunja, they have a brief affair and she becomes pregnant. Passing minister Baek Isak marries Sunja and brings her to live with him, his brother Yoseb and his wife Kyunghee in Japan. Sunja and Isak eventually come to love one another and have a son of their own following Sunja’s firstborn. ...