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Bucheon City of Literature

Winner

The 2022 Winner
Pachinko

Pachinko (2017)

As Korea suffers under Japanese colonial rule, Yangjin, hailing from Yeongdo in Busan, marries Hoonie, cripple and harelip, for money due to her family’s poor economic situation. Sunja, their daughter, moves to Japan where she gives birth to two sons, and those sons go on to grow up and have their own sons in Japan. This book details the sad reality of ‘Zainichi’ Koreans, who drift as outsiders, neither fully Japanese nor Korean, and suffer endless discrimination from mainstream Japanese society.

  • About the Author

    Min Jin Lee
    Min Jin Lee

    Min Jin Lee‘s Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award. A New York Times Bestseller, Pachinko was also a Top 10 Books of the Year for New York Times, USA Today, BBC, and the New York Public Library. Pachinko was on over 75 best-of-the-years lists, including NPR, PBS, and CNN. Lee’s debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires (2007), was a Top 10 Books of the Year for The Times, NPR’s Fresh Air, and USA Today. Her fiction has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts and has appeared most recently in One Story. Her writings about books, travel, global affairs, and food have appreared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, Vogue (US), Travel + Leisure (SEA) and Wall Street Journal. She has served as a columnist of the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s leading newspaper, for three seasons. She has recived the NYFA fellowship for fiction, the Peden Prize from the Missouri Review for Best Story, and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writers. A 2018 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowships for fiction, Lee has been named a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University for 2018-2019, where she will be researching and writing her third novel, American Hagwon.
    * Photography by Beowulf Sheehan

  • Korean translation (joint winners)

    Seung-Mi SHIN
    Seung-Mi SHIN

    Seungmi Shin is a graduate of Chosun University, where she majored in Korean Language and Literature. She was a professional journalist with six years of experience in writing and editing articles for magazines before she started working as a translator. She has translated about 50 books over 16 years. Her work includes Simple Abundance, The Book of Eels, Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me, Beneath A Scarlet Sky, To Complete A To Z For Your V, What if My Dog...?, Not Without My Father, Madly in Love with Me, Squeezed : What You Don't Know About Orange Juice, The Velveteen Principles for Women, The Book of Luck, The Blue Zones, Unbroken, Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum's Heart book, Home Sweet Anywhere.

  • Mi-Jung LEE
    Mi-Jung LEE

    Mi-Jung Lee is a translator and a graduate of English Literature at Yeungnam University. Her translations include Lost Apothecary by Sara Penner, How to do the Work by Nicole LePera, Last Day by Luanne Rice, Brave Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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