Live from New York with Author Min Jin Lee

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Live from On Air Fest in Brooklyn, our talk with award-winning author Min Jin Lee! At the top, we discuss the roadmap to her upcoming third novel, American Hagwon (4:25), immigrating from Seoul to Queens in the 1970s (7:10), and the violence her family endured working in America (15:50). Then, Lee reflects on her years at Yale (19:15), a life-changing diagnosis in college (21:37), and the criticism she overcame as a young writer (25:26).

On the back-half, Lee reads a personal passage from her New Yorker piece “Stonehenge” (33:05) and talks about finding community through her work (36:14), her path to publication in Free Food for Millionaires (38:32), how she learned to embrace the ephemeral moment (42:06), and the reform in education she hopes to see in years to come (45:12).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San Francisco writer Minjin Lee.
0:45.0	She's the author of two books including Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko,
0:50.0	the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Award back in 2017.
0:55.6	She's also a writer and residence at Amherst College and serves as a trustee for Penn America. At the moment she's finishing her third novel titled American
1:06.2	Hoguan, which will conclude what she's been calling her Korean diaspora trilogy.
1:12.0	A trilogy that, although fictional, is born out of years of tireless research.
1:17.0	Lee's approach is informed by both her time as a journalist and an attorney, conducting interviews and collecting evidence in an attempt to map the Korean diasparic experience.
1:29.0	If that description sounds more academic than thrilling.
1:33.4	Please blame me because both of her books while tackling these big ideas around home,
1:38.8	assimilation, and power are intoxicating page-turners, gliding from one chapter to the next with what the New Yorker
1:46.5	calls a quiet intrigue.
1:49.3	We talk about those books in this conversation, but we also talk about the life that led to those pieces.
1:56.0	Immigrating from soul to Queens in the 1970s, the violence her family endured while working in America, her years at Yale, the rejection she fought
2:05.5	through as a young writer, and somehow and probably Rhonda Santis. We taped this talk
2:12.3	a few weeks ago in front of a live audience as part of the on-air
2:16.4	festival in Williamsburg, New York. I just want to thank the Wythe Hotel for hosting us.
2:21.6	I had not done a live taping of talk easy. I think since the start of the
2:26.5	pandemic and I could not have asked for a better on-stage scene partner than MingenLee. As you'll hear, she's funny, she's smart, and apparently
2:37.8	my new stepmother. That will all make sense in a little bit. I promise.
2:43.2	Until then, here is me with writer Min Jin Lee
2:47.2	Live from New York. Good afternoon. Welcome to Brooklyn. I feel like I have hit a certain milestone in my career because I'm here with Sam Forgoza.
3:07.5	Oh my god. So thank you. And also I was so worried that no one would come but then I thought no of course they're gonna come they're gonna come for Sam I felt the same way but I knew since you were here that people would show up
	...

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