Pachinko

At a Glance

Beginning in 1910s colonial Korea and spanning eight decades to 1980s Japan, Pachinko follows the descendants of Sunja, a young Korean woman who becomes pregnant by a married yakuza and emigrates to Japan as the wife of a pastor. Her illegitimate son Noa grows up desperate to assimilate into a society that will never accept him; his brother Mozasu makes peace with being an outsider by running pachinko parlors. The novel tracks four generations of their family — defined by sacrifice, shame, love, and the stubborn refusal to disappear.

Why This Book Matters

Pachinko filled a genuine historical silence: the Korean-Japanese community's experience had not been the subject of a major English-language novel, despite representing nearly a million people and nearly a century of documented discrimination. The novel was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2017, named a New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year, and selected by Apple TV+ for a prestige adaptation (2022–present) with a multilingual cast. It is now taught widely in AP English and college courses as a model of the multigenerational novel and a corrective to the historical gaps in standard literary curricula.

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