WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 30, 2021—Williams College will host an online event with award-winning fiction writer Min Jin Lee, who will read and discuss her work in conversation with Sam Crane, chair of Asian studies and the Edward S. Greenbaum 1910 Professor of Political Science. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Thursday, May 6, at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Lee will also take questions from the audience.
To join the online event, use the following link:
https://williams.zoom.us/j/94720371256?pwd=QW5tR0FaS0MzZlBvdi9ndFJIQWhXUT09
Passcode: 552480
Min Jin Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to Queens, N.Y., with her family when she was 7 years old. Her award-winning fiction explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, immigration, class, religion, gender, and identity of a diasporic people.
Lee’s second novel, Pachinko, is an epic story which follows a Korean family that migrates to Japan. A New York Times Bestseller, it is the first novel written for an adult, English-speaking audience about the Korean-Japanese people. The book, which President Obama called “a powerful story about resilience and compassion,” was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and a New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017.
Pachinko was also a Top 10 Books of the Year for BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the New York Public Library. In addition, the novel was a selection for “Now Read This,” the joint book club of PBS NewsHour and The New York Times, and it was on more than 75 best books of the year lists, including NPR, PBS, and CNN. Pachinko will be translated into over 30 languages and is an international bestseller.
Lee studied history at Yale College and law at Georgetown University. She practiced law for two years before turning to writing. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, she currently teaches fiction and essay writing at Amherst College. She lives in New York City.
The event is sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies.
Published April 30, 2021