Min Jin Lee Returns with American Hagwon, Closing Her Korean Trilogy

Min Jin Lee has published her third novel, American Hagwon, the final part of what she calls her "Korean trilogy" — though she now corrects that to "Korean quartet!"

The book follows Free Food for Millionaires (2007) and Pachinko (2017), the international bestseller that sold 5 million copies and was adapted into a hit Apple TV series in 2022. Nearly 10 years separate Pachinko from the new novel.

Lee's turn to writing began with a medical prognosis. Diagnosed as a hepatitis B carrier as a teenager, she was told by doctors that she was highly likely to develop liver cancer in her 20s or 30s. In 1995, in her mid-20s, she quit her job as a corporate lawyer.

"I thought, if I'm going to die, I'm going to write a book first," the now 57-year-old Korean-American author says of her decision to give up a regular salary and healthcare. "I was told so many times that I was going to get sicker and sicker, that I've always felt that if I can get a really good book out then I'm done."

Speaking on a video call from her home in Harlem, New York, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind her, Lee looks healthy — and credits experimental drugs. Her improved health has allowed her to commit to another book beyond the trilogy.

"Before I turn 70, I should turn in my manuscript," she jokes. "I'm writing the four books that I wanted to write and after that I'm going to take a long nap."

Lee now has a fourth novel on the horizon, extending a project that began as a race against a fatal prognosis into one of the most celebrated bodies of Korean-American fiction in contemporary literature.