Pachinko – Min Jin Lee

This is an epic historical novel that follows four generations of a Korean immigrant family in Japan, spanning from 1911 to the late 1980s. The story begins with Sunja, a young girl in a small Korean fishing village who falls pregnant by a wealthy, married man. To avoid ruin, she accepts a marriage proposal from a Christian minister, Baek Isak, and moves with him to a hostile Japan. The novel explores the family’s multi-generational struggles with discrimination, identity, and resilience in a country that treats them as perpetual outsiders.