I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times book review, and this is the book review podcast. It is the dog days of August, and the show is taking this week off to prepare for a full and wonderful slate of fall episodes. We didn't want to leave you empty-eared,

however, so here is a wonderful episode from last summer. That was part of our 100 best books

of the 21st century project. It's me and the author Minjin Lee talking about her novel,

Pachinko. I hope you enjoy it.

Min, thank you for being here. Oh, Gilbert. It's so fun to be here.

Now, Min, Pachinko is a sweeping novel about several generations of Koreans who, through various circumstances, find themselves living in Japan. First, during the

free World War II moment when Korea was still a Japanese colony, and then in the post-World

War II moment when Korea was split in two, and then for many decades after. It starts in

1910. It starts in 1910.

It ends in 1989.

I'm curious, what time period did the book actually start in your head the first time you started writing this?

When you really dug into Pachinko, what year were the characters actually in?

This is so embarrassing.

It's embarrassing because I got the idea for the book where I learned about the Koreans in Japan when I was 19 years old.

So that means that's 1989.

I started working on the book itself in 1996.

And then I wrote a whole draft and it was garbage.

And so I abandoned it and I started other things.

So that's 1989.

Big year for you, big year for Taylor Swift.

But when, so that's when you started writing it.

But what year were the characters?

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