Americans, myself included, can talk with strangers rather easily, and I missed the brief intimacies shared among strangers. Also, I missed speaking English to everyone. I loved Tokyo in many ways, but I missed my family (parents, sisters, in-laws, nieces and nephew) and dear friends very much. As I get older, I take myself less seriously.Īfter living (and writing) abroad for 4 years (in Tokyo from 2007 – 2011), what was it like to return stateside? Is being a writer a different sort of occupation in different countries? This, I think, is ultimately a fine thing. Also, in a city, I am constantly humbled by the greatness of things and people. I am an urban writer who feels comfortable around different types of people.Īlso, there are daily surprises in cities like New York and Tokyo-some good and some not so good-which make for great material. I live across the street from an elementary school, and the sounds of children make me feel happy and alert. There is less car traffic where I live, and my neighbors are thoughtful and lovely. I live in Central Harlem now, and it is a quiet part of Manhattan. I feel the pull of suburbs and rural areas, too, but I feel most at home in cities. I was born in Seoul and have lived in New York, New Haven, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo.

In cities, I get to have both the nearness of many people and a kind of particular privacy found only in crowds.

How does being an urban writer affect your work and your characters’ stories? Metropolitan settings-like New York City, Tokyo, or Chicago-are certainly the epitome of changing communities. Your debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, is a story about maintaining one’s identity within changing communities. The Chicago Review of Books spoke with Lee about her experience as an American writer abroad, her favorite sights to visit in the Windy City, and Pachinko, a book that took 30 years to write. Lee is one of more than 500 participating in an author signing for an upcoming or recently-released book, in addition to the many panel and speaker events scheduled during the 4-day convention. This week, Min Jin Lee is in Chicago for BEA (Book Expo America), North America’s largest gathering of book industry professionals from around the globe. After spending four years living abroad in Tokyo herself, Korean-American lawyer-turned-writer Min Jin Lee has tackled the stories of this underrepresented community in her second novel, Pachinko, forthcoming in February 2017 from Grand Central. From Suki Kim’s The Interpreter to Min Jin Lee’s own Free Food for Millionaires, stories of Koreans and first generation Korean-Americans navigating life in the States span the hysterical, poignant, and bittersweet. But few works exist that detail an entirely different Korean immigrant community: those transplanted just across the sea to Japan.

Min jin