“Every time something bad happens, what are you going to do? That requires wisdom. Life is going to keep schooling you until you either fall flat on your face or you brush yourself off and pick yourself back up.”
-Min Jin Lee, episode 472 of Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
“The rules of engagement have changed already.”
Novelist Min Jin Lee (Pachinko) is a beacon of wit and wisdom. She returns to the show this week with American Hagwon, the long-awaited third installment in her Korean diaspora quartet.
We begin with the ten-year process of writing American Hagwon (3:25), the thesis guiding the novel (4:00), and her experiences with education after immigrating from South Korea to Queens, New York (8:53). Then, Lee describes her process conducting thousands of interviews for the book (14:20), her relationship to security (18:18), and the staggering effects of media on young people (21:55).
On the back-half, we talk about her years at Yale (32:58), how her legal training at Georgetown shaped her approach to fiction (44:32), and the risks of artificial intelligence (45:55). To close, Lee unpacks the dreams we defer for our families (1:10:22), her advice to “choose the important over the urgent” (1:20:07), and the premise for her next novel, Marshall Plan (1:26:30).
As always, our email: talkeasypod@gmail.com.
Watch this conversation on YouTube:
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Show-notes:
- Read American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee.
- Find her previous books, Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires.
- Learn more about her work and events on her website.
- Hear our first conversation with Min from 2023.
- Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
- For more, our talks with Zadie Smith, Ocean Vuong, Salman Rushdie, and Isabel Allende.
- Order your Talk Easy mug in cream and navy or our vinyl record with Fran Lebowitz.
Photographs by Emil Ravelo. Design by Derek Gabryszak and Will Tuddenham.
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